Secondary SCITT in Design & Technology and Health & Social Care

About this course

The Northumbria Design Technology (DT) Partnership School-Centred Initial Teacher Training (SCITT) is designed to train specialist teachers in Design and Technology for the Secondary Sector. The Northumbria Partnership is a group of Schools in the North East who have chosen to work together with Northumbria University on this course.

The course enables students to apply their area of expertise acquired in their undergraduate degree with another one of the five strands listed below:

• Food and Textiles (11-16)
• Product Design and Textiles (11-16)
• Food and Health and Social Care (11-16)
• Health and Social Care and Food (14-19) 
• Material Component Technology & Product Design (11-16)

The chosen strand will then be studied alongside Design and Technology.
Successful trainees enter their first teaching post with a Professional Graduate Certificate of Education (PGCE Level 6) and Qualified Teacher Status (QTS).

What is a SCITT?

A SCITT is a particular type of initial teacher education which is primarily school-based, meaning that students experience thorough professional preparation for life as a teacher while studying for the academic qualification of PGCE.

If you would like more details about PGCE training and the SCITT route in particular, please visit: www.tda.gov.uk/Recruit/thetrainingprocess/typesofcourse/postgraduate.aspx  

Course Overview
Students will:

• Be based at, and teach in, two of the secondary schools in the Northumbria Partnership. Will teach for 5/6 weeks in the first school and 8/10 weeks in the second school. (Please see the downloadable document about Partnership Schools.) 
• Receive lectures and workshops supporting subject studies in their chosen strand as well as lectures in Information Communications Technology (ICT).
• Spend two days in schools in Newham, London, and spend three days in a primary school working with peers and pupils delivering a DT workshop.
• Develop contacts and spend time in related industries from which students will generate recent and relevant teaching and learning materials.
• Be assessed through assignments, the practice of teaching, and the Teacher Training Agency (TTA) Skills Tests in Numeracy, Literacy and ICT.

A school centred approach

The school-centred approach is integral.  Students on this programme will continue to receive:

• Training in very well resourced partnership schools
• Loan of a lap top with generic and subject specific software and a camcorder
• Secondary school teachers delivering subject curriculum studies in school  
• Secondary school teachers providing generic and individualised training
• Secondary school teachers being their tutor, mentor and assessor of teaching competence
• School teachers, consultants and university staff delivering lectures to all secondary initial student teachers
• Subject specialists monitoring and assessing all aspects of the programme
• Teaching placements in two partnership schools
• Access to a range of other schools or centres
• Taught sessions alongside specialist subject peers and students from other secondary programmes.

For a list of the partnership schools, click here.

Entry Requirements
GCSE (or equivalent) Grade C* or above in English and Mathematics plus a degree (normally 2:1 or above) in, or related to, Food, Textiles, Graphics, or/and Health and Social Care.
(*Nobody nationally is sure at this point (November 2010) whether the government will raise the GCSE entry requirements for English Language and Maths for Secondary applicants from a grade 'C' to a grade 'B'.  We are alerting you to this situation which may or may not come to pass this September.)

All candidates making a suitable application will be interviewed. The interview takes half a day and takes place in one of the Northumbria Partnership schools.

Suitability for a place will be supported by portfolio evidence, prior learning and references. 

For more information about the interview process, click here.