Further Pathways to FE Teaching

The Foundation seeks to encourage final year undergraduates to consider a career in teaching in FE. One approach to this is to get final year students to spend some time in FE providers [colleges or ITPs], helping with the delivery. The Foundation is seeking partners to organise mentored placements with FE sector providers and facilitating this by offering financial incentives to the students and operational funding to the colleges/ITPs. As the partner might be working at a local level, we may be looking to up to 6 geographically separate partners to ensure the desired regional coverage.

The proposed locations for the projects are:

• London
• Bristol
• Birmingham
• Manchester
• Cambridge
• Leicester

The specific work involves:

-identifying FE providers that are interested in taking in final year students in this manner

-identifying HEIs within which to promote this campaign

-recruiting suitable final year students

-matching students to FE provider 'placements'

-disbursing relevant monies and keeping account

-providing an evaluation of the project

The students would be committed to spending a minimum of 40 hours at a local FE provider, and comply with the activities as directed by the FE provider. Payments would be made at completion with an advance to cover any travel or expenses.

The FE provider would be committed to providing placements appropriate to the students' subject knowledge and which provide a taste of the teaching culture and practice. Payments to FE providers would be per placement and split 50/50 at start and finish.

The Foundation successfully piloted this approach with East Durham College and 20 placements were completed. This means that suitable support materials are already available to be used with possible local adaptation.