SCITT in East London Schools (SCITTELS)

SCITT in East London Schools (SCITTELS)

Address: SCITTELS, Colegrave Primary School, Stratford, London, E15 1JY Unique reference number (URN): 70154

p.1

Inclusion Exceptional

Leaders have made inclusion a compelling and defining feature of their work. This commitment is enacted and sustained through a mature and lived culture that forms a golden thread for every aspect of the programme. Leaders’ highly intentional approach to recruitment and selection acts as the cornerstone, ensuring that trainees experience and benefit from this culture before they have even started their training.

p.1

Inclusion Exceptional

Leaders are unwaveringly ambitious about recruiting trainees from backgrounds that are underrepresented in the teaching profession. Highly focused strategic planning together with a sensitive understanding of what might deter someone from pursuing a teaching career enable leaders to realise and sustain this ambition with the utmost of consistency. For example, as part of their application, trainees’ diverse experiences and backgrounds are

p.1

Strong standard

celebrated through the materials they are asked to share at interview, making them feel that they belong as teachers from the outset.

p.2

Strong standard

Equally, leaders are highly alert to the experiences that trainees may not have had prior to their training. They are proactive in finding out how this might act as an obstacle to trainees’ confidence and success, both during the programme and in their career long term. Leaders shape the programme carefully in response, for instance, by intentionally expanding trainees’ awareness of cultural institutions such as the National Gallery, Kew Gardens and the Science museum.

p.2

Strong standard

Trainees also benefit from a multitude of avenues to share any barriers or needs. Each concern or additional need is acted on at pace by leaders, with sensitively tailored adjustments put in place for trainees. Trainees consistently report that this support is seamless and unobtrusive. Their high completion rates reflect the remarkably positive impact of leaders’ deliberate and sustained efforts.

p.2

Achievement Strong standard

Trainees develop well-grounded subject knowledge, sophisticated pedagogical skills, and a confident professional identity. A high proportion of trainees complete the programme and go on to secure employment as teachers. Trainees track their own progress through subject knowledge development logs and regular professional learning conversations. Consequently, they have a clear and accurate picture of their own strengths and priorities.

p.2

Achievement Strong standard

Early career teachers (ECTs), mentors and school leaders consistently describe SCITTELS trainees as very well prepared for a career in teaching. Trainees’ transition into their first year of teaching is seamless because of the strategies embedded in their practice during training. One school leader noted that trainees are 'incredibly employable' and that 'the proof of the training is in the teaching.' Many partner headteachers go out of their way to recruit these trainees, particularly for their expertise in supporting pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities.

p.2

Curriculum, teaching and training Strong standard

Leaders have designed a highly ambitious, coherent ITE curriculum. They have expertly crafted it around 5 core areas of teaching practice: behaviour management, curriculum knowledge, pedagogy, assessment, and professional behaviours. Research and Education Endowment Foundation guidance provide the foundation for the curriculum. Trainees regularly engage with the most up-to-date evidence. Well-established systems for communication across the partnership, ensure mentors and trainees work from the same rich knowledge base.

p.2

Curriculum, teaching and training Strong standard

Centre-based training covers all national curriculum subjects, with 5 sessions for mathematics, 6 for English, and at least 2 for every foundation subject. Highly effective subject training is seamlessly integrated with classroom teaching and the responsibilities of being a teacher. This helps trainees to develop a deep and thorough base of subject knowledge that they can apply in the classroom. Expert phonics training is embedded in the programme. As a result, trainees quickly develop confidence and practical skills in teaching this aspect of teaching.

p.2

Curriculum, teaching and training Strong standard

The programme's 4 Intensive Training and Practice (ITAP) weeks cover critical-themes such as building relationships and behaviour management. ITAP weeks are deliberately sequenced throughout the year to align precisely with when trainees are most ready to apply each focus. Each follows a five-stage framework: introduce, analyse, prepare, enact and reflect. Trainees visit the same specialist setting during every ITAP week. This helps trainees to build a sustained, deep understanding of how to support pupils with special educational needs and/or disabilities. During ITAP weeks, trainees use tools to rehearse detailed responses to challenging classroom scenarios. This low-stakes environment allows trainees to listen to feedback from their peers before applying strategies with pupils.

p.3

Curriculum, teaching and training Strong standard

Trainees are consistently well supported by mentors who are responsive to their individual needs. Trainees benefit from helpful, subject-specific assessment report forms that contain prompts for adaptive teaching and targeted coaching questions. Through robust tracking, leaders ensure that trainees receive regular and very useful feedback that helps them to improve their teaching. Mentors receive helpful training well in advance of each ITAP week, so they are well equipped to reinforce the learning with trainees in a timely way. Trainees value learning specific strategies, such as sitting with pupils at lunch to build relationships, which they can quickly embed into their everyday teaching.

p.3

Leadership Strong standard

Leaders articulate a clear, well-established vision: to train teachers from local communities, for local schools. This vision drives every aspect of provision, from targeted recruitment of underrepresented groups to the design of a curriculum that equips trainees to serve culturally diverse communities. Leaders are deeply reflective and act rapidly on feedback: session lengths, task volumes, and the timing of resource release have all been refined in direct response to input from trainees and mentors.

p.3

Leadership Strong standard

Quality assurance is rigorous and continuous. Leaders have embedded a range of quality assurance processes in the programme which together form a robust, multi-layered cycle. This helps leaders ensure that all internal and external training sessions consistently follow an inclusive format, with all key considerations built in as a non-negotiable requirement.

p.3

Leadership Strong standard

Mentor training and support are exemplary. Leaders co-deliver an annual mentoring conference with two other school-centred initial teacher training providers through the East London Mentoring group, extending their influence across the region. A joint mentor-and- trainee session, introduced this year, has enhanced the integration between centre-based and school-based learning. Mentors report that working with SCITTELS has reinvigorated their own practice.

p.3

Leadership Strong standard

The strategic board is active and effective. It poses well-founded challenges to leaders, including the initiation of the joint practice session model. Safeguarding compliance is

p.3

Next steps

Leaders and those with oversight of the provision should sustain and build on the depth and rigour of their work as they expand into new areas, ensuring that the same quality of training and outcomes is achieved for every trainee. meticulous: all leaders are suitably knowledgeable and so the provider’s safeguarding responsibilities, for all pathways including the apprenticeship route, are fully upheld.

p.4

Professional behaviours, personal development and wellbeing Strong standard

Leaders have high expectations of trainees’ professional conduct from the outset. Two weeks of dedicated professional behaviours training at the start of the programme covers communication, email and social media etiquette, working with families, and managing support staff. Mentors note that trainees present themselves highly professionally from day one.

p.4

Professional behaviours, personal development and wellbeing Strong standard

Pastoral support work is multi-layered and proactive. A wellbeing question is embedded in the weekly training plan, providing a low-barrier prompt for trainees who find it difficult to raise concerns directly. This encourages mentors to act quickly when they notice changes in trainees’ mood or engagement. Leaders have introduced a coaching-first approach to supporting trainees which has proved highly effective in keeping all trainees on the programme this year without recourse to formal measures.

p.4

Professional behaviours, personal development and wellbeing Strong standard

Leaders work hard to ensure trainees are not subjected to bullying, harassment, or discrimination. Trainees learn to handle discriminatory behaviour through structured training, including responding to incidents involving pupils. This work significantly increases trainees’ resilience.

p.4

Professional behaviours, personal development and wellbeing Strong standard

Leaders deliberately aim to limit trainees’ travel time to placement schools. This policy helps trainees maintain a healthy work-life balance and reduces the burden on those who are managing other personal responsibilities.

p.4

What it's like to be a trainee at this provider

SCITTELS trains teachers for East London schools, serving communities characterised by significant linguistic, cultural, and socioeconomic diversity. Trainees, including those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) or other barriers to learning, are known as individuals from the outset. Leaders identify trainees’ needs before training begins and adapt support continuously throughout the year. As a result, trainees from widely varied backgrounds, including some who themselves received free school meals, complete their training at consistently high rates and go on to become confident, capable teachers.

p.4

What it's like to be a trainee at this provider

Trainees follow a purposefully sequenced programme that integrates Friday training sessions, in-school practice, and 4 Intensive Training and Practice (ITAP) weeks. These ITAP weeks, focused on behaviour and relationship-building, adaptive teaching and scaffolding, questioning, and explanations, are the backbone of trainees' pedagogical development. Trainees describe the strategies they learn as immediately usable. For example, trainees can apply 'bouncing and pouncing' questioning techniques quickly after an ITAP week. Visits to specialist settings during each ITAP mean trainees are consistently well prepared to support pupils with SEND.

p.4

What it's like to be a trainee at this provider

Trainees feel safe, respected, and part of a professional community. Support from lead mentors is accessible and personalised, with office hours, bookable meetings, and proactive check-ins forming part of everyday practice. The vast majority of trainees would recommend this programme. They leave well prepared to teach the full national curriculum, including phonics, to the diverse communities of East London.

p.5

About this inspection

SCITTTELS delivers initial teacher education (ITE) in the primary phase only. Trainees follow one of three routes:

p.5

About this inspection

◼ Trainees in the primary phase undertake a postgraduate route leading to qualified teacher status (QTS), the majority of which is delivered in partnership with Goldsmiths, University of London, leading to a postgraduate certificate in education (PGCE) with QTS.

p.5

About this inspection

◼ A small number of trainees undertake a QTS-only route, following the same curriculum without the PGCE element.

p.5

About this inspection

◼ There are currently 2 apprentices studying the postgraduate teaching apprenticeship (level 6 teacher).

p.5

About this inspection

The provider works with 25 primary schools across 6 local authority areas.

p.5

About this inspection

Following our renewed inspection framework, all inspections are now led by His Majesty's Inspectors (HMIs) or by Ofsted Inspectors (OIs) who have previously served as HMIs.

p.5

About this inspection

Inspection activities included meetings with the director, curriculum lead, and mentor development lead throughout the inspection. Inspectors also spoke with the headteacher of the lead partner school, who serves as the accounting officer. Inspectors met with members of the strategic board, including a university representative and partner headteachers, as well as the external moderator (current and former), a partner school-centred initial teacher training (SCITT) director, and members of the East London Mentoring group.

p.5

About this inspection

Inspectors visited placement schools, meeting with trainees, mentors, and ITT coordinators.

p.5

About this inspection

Inspectors spoke with groups of trainees, early career teachers, external training providers, and reviewed documentation, including curriculum plans, trainee tracking records, assessment report forms and intensive training and practice booklets.

p.5

Lead inspector:

Aliki Constantopoulou, His Majesty's Inspector

p.6

Facts and figures used on inspection

This data was used by the inspector(s) during the inspection. More recent data may have been published since the inspection took place.

p.6

Exceptional

Practice is exceptional: of the highest standard nationally. Other providers can learn from it.

p.6

Strong standard

The provider reaches a strong standard. Leaders are working above the standard expected of them.

p.6

Expected standard

The provider is fulfilling the expected standard of training. This means they are following the standard set out in statutory and non ‑ statutory legislation and the professional standards expected of them.

p.6

Needs attention

The expected standards are not met but leaders are likely able to make the necessary improvements.

p.6

Urgent improvement

The provider needs to make urgent improvements to provide the expected standard of training. services providing education and skills for children and learners of all ages, and inspects and regulates services that care for children and young people.

p.6

Urgent improvement

If you would like a copy of this document in a different format, such as large print or Braille, please telephone 0300 123 1231, or email enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk .

p.7

Urgent improvement

You may reuse this information (not including logos) free of charge in any format or medium, under the terms of the Open Government Licence. To view this licence, visit www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence , write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gsi.gov.uk .

p.7

Urgent improvement

Interested in our work? You can subscribe to our monthly newsletter for more information and updates: http://eepurl.com/iTrDn .

p.7

Urgent improvement

T: 0300 123 1231 Textphone: 0161 618 8524 E: enquiries@ofsted.gov.uk W: www.gov.uk/ofsted

p.7