National Institute of Teaching (NIoT)

National Institute of Teaching (NIoT)

Address: National Institute of Teaching, Potovens Lane, Wakefield, WF1 2PF Unique reference number (URN): 2740727

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Achievement Exceptional

Trainees demonstrate consistently well-honed knowledge and skills to teach primary-aged pupils. This includes a highly refined understanding of how to optimise teaching approaches for the benefit of those with special educational needs and/or disabilities and others who may face barriers to learning. Trainees draw skilfully on their in-depth subject knowledge and pedagogical understanding to design learning sequences informed by cognitive load theory, making choices that are highly effective in reducing extraneous load for pupils who may have processing difficulties.

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Achievement Exceptional

A rigorous cycle of feedback, combined with structured opportunities for deliberate practice, enables trainees to reflect upon and subsequently refine their teaching to an exemplary standard. They develop high confidence and mastery in aspects of teaching such as managing behaviour and inclusive teaching. Trainees take active responsibility for pinpointing and actioning their development needs, embodying a commitment to continual improvement that extends way beyond their initial training.

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Achievement Exceptional

Completion rates are consistently high, including for those trainees who face barriers to learning or wellbeing. Trainees leave the programme with in-depth reflective skills, deep professional curiosity and the resilience to thrive in the teaching profession. They are exceptionally well prepared for teaching in the primary phase.

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Curriculum, teaching and training Exceptional

Leaders have designed a remarkably ambitious curriculum. This is firmly rooted in and prioritises the ‘active ingredients’ that leaders see as crucial, underpinning elements for highly effective teaching in the primary phase. Leaders continuously refine the curriculum with precision, so it remains highly relevant and enables trainees to build their knowledge and skills cumulatively and deeply. For example, trainees learn to consider and explore how to develop the purposeful talk of younger learners in an increasingly digital age. These insights prepare trainees to teach with assurance in the changing landscape of education.

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Curriculum, teaching and training Exceptional

Leaders are influential contributors to research both within and beyond the National Institute of Education. High-quality research is deeply embedded across all aspects of the curriculum. Trainees are supported to habitually engage with this research to justify their pedagogical decisions and demonstrate criticality and with confidence beyond what would be typical of those embarking on a teaching career.

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Curriculum, teaching and training Exceptional

Teacher educators deliver high-quality, impactful training which includes, for example, a relentless focus on ensuring that trainees revisit core principles and concepts in carefully scaffolded classroom contexts, which in turn enables trainees to connect and deepen their learning over time.

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Curriculum, teaching and training Exceptional

The astutely crafted integration of the taught curriculum, mentor curriculum and school- based training is very impressive. For example, leaders identify precise curriculum-driven targets which are systematically threaded through trainees’ school-based experiences. Teacher educators and mentors consistently break these targets down with meticulous precision, providing trainees with a clear and achievable route to success. As a result, trainees use feedback remarkably well to strengthen their teaching practice. Leaders have meticulously structured intensive training and practice around the aspects of teaching and learning that have the highest leverage, such as establishing routines and effective questioning.

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Curriculum, teaching and training Exceptional

Mentors are highly skilled and knowledgeable about teaching pupils and supporting trainees. This enables them to accurately assess trainees’ knowledge and skills and adapt support accordingly.

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Curriculum, teaching and training Exceptional

The curriculum enables trainees to develop an in-depth understanding of the range of barriers that some pupils may face, including special educational needs and/or disabilities, and wider vulnerabilities such as low attendance or refugee status. Trainees are taught not only to identify these barriers but to respond adeptly with evidence-informed strategies that reduce disadvantage and promote inclusion.

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Inclusion Exceptional

Leaders demonstrate an uncompromising commitment to recruiting trainees from a wide range of backgrounds. They rigorously interrogate recruitment data and implement precise actions that increase the success rate of trainees who may face barriers to their learning and/or wellbeing. For example, from the outset of the programme, trainees complete an educational ‘autobiography’ that provides insight into their routes into teaching. Staff use this information remarkably well to implement highly effective adaptations, resulting in provision for trainees which corresponds exactly to their starting points and needs.

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Inclusion Exceptional

Trainees feel confident to disclose any potential barriers to their learning or wellbeing. Teacher educators and those involved in mentoring are vigilant in identifying potential undiagnosed needs or other emerging barriers. They act swiftly and with discernible sensitivity to implement impactful support and to adapt the curriculum for individual trainees. These carefully considered adaptations have a transformational impact on trainees’ experiences and outcomes. Leaders signpost services that offer financial support for trainees who wish to pursue a formal diagnosis for conditions that could pose a barrier to their learning or wellbeing.

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Inclusion Exceptional

The principles of ‘mattering’ and ‘belonging’ are embedded deeply across the provision. They are consistently enacted and upheld by leaders and staff at every stage of trainees’ development. Consequently, trainees feel welcome and flourish, and can go on to succeed within the teaching profession.

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Leadership Exceptional

Expectations for initial teacher training are remarkably high and communicated and lived out with absolute clarity and conviction across the partnership. Through systematic evaluation of every aspect of the programme, leaders across the organisation have a precise and authoritative understanding of the strengths of the programme and any areas that could be improved. Quality assurance is conducted in an exemplary manner at every level of the provider. The strategic board holds leaders to account so that excellence is maintained.

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Leadership Exceptional

The provider and its school partners are expert contributors to cutting-edge research that informs practice both locally and nationally. For example, the provider’s work in developing trainees’ and leaders’ expertise and confidence in responding to challenges arising from perceived misinformation is impressive and exemplifies sector-leading practice.

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Leadership Exceptional

Professional learning is extensive, meticulously structured and highly responsive to the needs of staff, trainees and mentors. The mentoring curriculum is deliberately designed to cultivate and extend mentors’ expert knowledge and skill, with content grounded extensively in evidence-informed practice. This acts as a driving force behind leaders’ pursuit of excellence and secures expert delivery of the training curriculum across the country.

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Leadership Exceptional

Leaders have established effective and cohesive partnerships with schools nationally that places trainees’ best interests at the centre. Partnership schools enact their commitment to achieving excellence with absolute fidelity, contributing purposefully to all aspects of the provider’s work, including national research. The systematic integration of research throughout the programme has established a forward-thinking organisation that anticipates change or challenges in the educational landscape. These insights are deliberately harnessed to adapt the curriculum with agility, so that it remains relevant and highly effective.

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Leadership Exceptional

Staff are overwhelmingly positive about the support that they receive to manage their workload and enhance their wellbeing. Staff and trainees are rightly proud of the provision, recognising that decisions are consistently rooted in what will have the greatest impact on trainees, and ultimately on all pupils.

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Professional behaviours, personal development and wellbeing Exceptional

Trainees consistently demonstrate high levels of integrity and professionalism. Expectations for professional behaviours are incredibly high and routinely reinforced. As a result, trainees immerse themselves completely in all aspects of the programme, demonstrating and sustaining the utmost commitment and drive on their journey to achieve excellence.

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Professional behaviours, personal development and wellbeing Exceptional

Leaders are highly responsive to trainees’ needs. Their systematic and insightful tracking processes identify low-level concerns early, resulting in swift and impactful intervention. Teacher educators and mentors are highly skilled in identifying and responding to trainees’ needs. They remain vigilant to subtle changes in behaviour that may indicate a need for additional support. As a result, trainees access a wide range of support, including, for example, external mental health services, flexible timetabling and practical support where needed.

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Professional behaviours, personal development and wellbeing Exceptional

Trainees demonstrate a strong sense of ownership over their development. For instance, trainees proactively request additional support or specialist guidance to meet expectations. This proactive approach ensures they remain on track while developing the independence and attributes required to thrive in the teaching profession.

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Professional behaviours, personal development and wellbeing Exceptional

Leaders and teacher educators provide guidance on how to manage workload effectively, including strategies for balancing teaching with wider responsibilities. If at any point workload becomes challenging, mentors and leaders respond flexibly, making timely adjustments that enable trainees to succeed without lowering expectations. Trainees, including those on the apprenticeship route, are prepared fully for the demands of early career teaching.

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Achievement Exceptional

Trainees have a highly impressive depth of knowledge for the stage of their careers. They articulate what they have learned with expertise and clarity. They also apply this learning to their teaching with precision and confidence. For example, some trainees have already developed such deeply honed skills in certain areas of the curriculum that they have delivered training in their placement schools to more-experienced colleagues.

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Achievement Exceptional

The depth and level with which trainees critically reflect on their learning are exemplary. They are deeply perceptive when discussing the strengths and limitations of both teaching strategies and a broad range of research. Many trainees take part in active research projects. This places their learning at the cutting edge of educational thought. Trainees have an acute understanding of their own strengths and areas for development. Achievement rates at the provider are extremely high. Trainees are not only highly prepared for their future careers, but ready to contribute to the continued development and improvement of the national educational picture.

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Curriculum, teaching and training Exceptional

Trainees benefit enormously from the provider’s work at the absolute forefront of educational research and curriculum design. The provider’s contributions to action research, for example in digital literacy and tackling misinformation, feed into not only strategy development at a national level but place trainees’ curriculum experience at the very pinnacle of educational theory. Leaders relentlessly reflect on and adapt the taught curriculum to ensure it prepares trainees deeply for their teaching careers, both now and in the future. The curriculum supports trainees to scrutinise and reflect on their practice with discernment and perceptiveness. For example, trainees carefully analyse when particular strategies to check for pupils’ understanding have the greatest impact. They learn in significant breadth and depth how to support pupils with a broad range of barriers and develop a firm understanding of their safeguarding responsibilities. Leaders carefully adapt the taught

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Curriculum, teaching and training Exceptional

curriculum to reflect the local context of the schools that the trainees are placed in. This supports trainees to develop precise strategies to support pupils to thrive, carefully considering local barriers.

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Curriculum, teaching and training Exceptional

All elements of the programme have been skilfully integrated. For example, intensive training and practice link deliberately to trainees’ academic study so that they can contextualise their learning across multiple areas. Mentoring is based on a sharp, precise understanding of what trainees are learning each week. As a result, mentoring feeds intelligently into trainees’ weekly practice in their placement schools. Trainees receive remarkably perceptive feedback and high-quality support to help them to rapidly develop and master their skills. Leaders’ sharply focused and streamlined procedures, for example the ‘trainee progress record’, support trainees, mentors and provider staff to complete their roles consistently and with uncompromisingly high quality.

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Curriculum, teaching and training Exceptional

Staff know the trainees, mentors and placement schools thoroughly. They deliver consistently high-quality training and role model the very best practice. This unwaveringly responsive and high-quality guidance prepares trainees extremely well for the next stage in their careers.

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Inclusion Exceptional

Leaders have developed an extremely positive culture which ensures that trainees feel deeply valued and supported. Trainees are completely confident to identify and report any needs or barriers that they have. They know that staff will be unfaltering and proactive in supporting the barriers that trainees have before they even start their course. For instance, leaders have conducted research to identify why some trainees with particular barriers did not pass the recruitment process in the past. This informed a series of measures to support trainees with similar needs through the application process. As a result, leaders have secured a sharp increase in trainees from a broad range of backgrounds successfully gaining a place on the course and subsequently thriving.

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Inclusion Exceptional

Leaders have developed extremely effective systems, including, for example, ‘trainee autobiographies’, which alert leaders to any potential barriers trainees may have. This ensures that barriers can even be identified before trainees disclose them. It also helps the provider to identify needs that trainees may themselves be unaware of. Adopting a compassionate and solution-focused approach, leaders put in place remarkably precise and impactful support and adaptations that help trainees with a broad range of barriers to absolutely thrive on their programmes. Staff across the organisation, including mentors, tutors and placement school leaders, have an extremely clear understanding of the barriers that trainees face. They are unequivocal in their actions to ensure that support is consistent, high-quality and enables trainees to flourish.

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Leadership Exceptional

Leaders are absolutely relentless in the pursuit of excellence and this filters through into every part of trainees’ experience. Leaders’ continuous cycle of self-evaluation, reflection and improvement upholds and drives the most exacting of standards within the provider. For example, leaders take weekly feedback from trainees and partners, alongside regular feedback from mentors and staff. Once an area for development is identified, leaders act with lightning speed and precision to develop this area of practice and ensure it is embedded consistently across the organisation. They have distilled systems and procedures down to their simplest forms to ensure absolute clarity, while retaining the highest levels of quality and expectations. The consistency of practice across mentors, training partners and staff is exemplary and contributes to the remarkable experience that trainees receive across the country.

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Leadership Exceptional

Leaders pioneer educational research across several areas of teacher education. This feeds into every level of the organisation with well-honed, deft actions, including the design and implementation of staff professional learning. For example, tutors and mentors benefit from the provider’s active research that examined when the use of deliberate practice has the most impact and when other strategies are more effective. This research is being shared nationally and supports the practice of other providers across the country.

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Leadership Exceptional

Leaders’ work with the various campuses and associate colleges across the country is exemplary. Every regional partner is central to the fabric of the organisation and contributes to the design of the curriculum as well as the strategic development of the organisation. The highly skilled and experienced strategic board holds leaders to account and provides support when required. The various leadership boards, which include diverse members from education and other professional fields as well as trainee representatives, provide leaders with regular, high-leverage feedback. This enables leaders to be nimble in responding to feedback. It also supports leaders to relentlessly develop both their own provision and support the development of teaching nationally.

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Professional behaviours, personal development and wellbeing Exceptional

Leaders have extremely high expectations for trainees’ professional behaviours. Developing trainees’ understanding of this is a core strand of the taught curriculum. Leaders and staff swiftly identify any gaps in understanding of professional behaviours, for instance, through the ‘fitness to practice log’. If concerns are raised, leaders address these swiftly and precisely. Trainees themselves display exemplary professional behaviours. They attend regularly, display highly professional conduct and demonstrate a relentless thirst to improve and develop further. The curriculum expertly and strategically develops trainees’ understanding of how to manage their own wellbeing and workload. As a result, trainees are highly prepared for the rigours of a career in teaching.

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Professional behaviours, personal development and wellbeing Exceptional

Pastoral support is exemplary in both its breadth and impact. For example, the trainee ‘autobiography’ that is completed at the start of the programme helps leaders to identify any trainees who may require pastoral support. These are expertly crafted to identify or pre-empt potential wellbeing needs even if trainees do not recognise them themselves at the time. Support around the trainees is sensitive, extensive and meticulously delivered. Mentors astutely identify any emerging concerns. Tutors meet with all trainees frequently and quickly identify any slight changes in behaviour that may identify a developing need. Trainees are overwhelmingly positive about the speed and precision of pastoral support that they have received to help them to thrive on their course.

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

Trainees wholeheartedly embody and draw inspiration from the provider’s unrelenting focus on improving the lives of children. Leaders deliberately seek out partnerships with schools that serve children who are potentially the most disadvantaged. Through this, trainees benefit from empowering first-hand experiences which deepen their understanding of the crucial influence that their teaching and pastoral care can have in shaping pupils’ life chances. Equally, leaders intentionally look for high-calibre potential trainees who may be best placed to teach pupils with possible barriers to learning and/or wellbeing. This includes a relentless focus on attracting local candidates from diverse backgrounds.

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

Trainees who experience potential disadvantage or those with special educational needs and/or disabilities (SEND) receive highly focused, effective support from teacher educators who genuinely care about their welfare. Leaders' decisive and targeted work to reduce barriers opens up a career in teaching to many who may have thought it was not possible.

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

Leaders’ uncompromising focus on the precise design and delivery of the programme ensures that trainees are instilled with a rich appreciation of national and local themes affecting the education sector. Input from local training partners ensures that trainees learn about local or grassroots challenges that resonate most with their classroom experience. This approach also helps trainees to place knowledge of national training firmly in the local community context.

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

High-quality research is a golden thread that permeates every aspect of trainees’ experience. Trainees learn highly relevant and cutting-edge research about how to support pupils to learn as best as they possibly can. Leaders use their in-depth knowledge of the national educational landscape and challenges that schools currently face to inform its approaches. This means that trainees benefit from training and teacher educators that adeptly pre-empt and address issues that they may encounter in their teaching career.

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

Leaders' research-focused approach has a tangible impact on the way that trainees approach their training. With the support of highly knowledgeable experts in placement schools, trainees develop deep critical reflection skills which quickly become habitual. As a result, trainees complete their training having gained remarkable knowledge and expertise. They are exceptionally well positioned to start a flourishing career in teaching.

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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.

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Primary phase lead inspector:

Deborah Walters, His Majesty's Inspector

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Team inspectors:

Adam Vincent, His Majesty's Inspector Lascelles Haughton, His Majesty's Inspector Una Buckley, His Majesty's Inspector Luke Stubbles, His Majesty's Inspector Julie Pearson, Ofsted Inspector Emily Henry, Ofsted Inspector Duncan Martin, Ofsted Inspector Philippa Kermotschuk, His Majesty's Inspector Su Plant, His Majesty's Inspector Jackie Stillings, Ofsted Inspector Mel Ford, His Majesty's Inspector Sally Rix, His Majesty's Inspector Valerie Elson, Ofsted Inspector All trainees undertake postgraduate routes into teaching. Trainees in the primary and secondary phases are either undertaking a salaried, postgraduate apprenticeship or fee- paying routes. These are offered in partnership with 18 'associate colleges'.

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Team inspectors:

There are 3 pathways on the postgraduate primary route: primary 3 to 7, primary 5 to 11 and the primary postgraduate teacher apprenticeship with special educational needs and/or disabilities.

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Team inspectors:

In the primary and secondary phases, there are currently 70 trainees completing a level 6 teacher apprenticeship.

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Team inspectors:

Currently, the provider has 67 participants undertaking an assessment only route into teaching.

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Team inspectors:

Inspectors spoke with representatives of the board of trustees, the national leader for initial teacher education and other senior leaders during the inspection. They spoke to leaders and staff at associate colleges and placement schools. Inspectors also spoke to trainees and visited them in their teaching practice school.

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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.

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Exceptional

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

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Strong standard

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

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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.

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Needs attention

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

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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.

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Urgent improvement

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Urgent improvement

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Urgent improvement

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Urgent improvement

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

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