Our Programmes

Our vision is to train evidence-informed, professional and inclusive teachers who can meet the challenges of the future and lead learning in a diverse educational landscape. We aim to build firm foundations for long and successful careers in the profession.

Core Purpose

• To immerse trainees in the school environment, encouraging them to think critically and become innovative educators.
• To tailor our programme to meet individual needs and aspirations, to provide varied experiences and to encourage trainees to become self-directed and internally motivated.
• To provide a well-sequenced programme where practice is closely aligned to the curriculum being
• To have high expectations of our trainees as professionals, nurturing them to become resilient individuals and supporting them to feel part of the school team and the wider Red Kite community.
• To creatively adapt national and regional initiatives to meet the needs of the local schools and educational settings.
• To meet the local, regional and national recruitment
• To develop highly-skilled mentors, across all partnerships, who will provide professional support with challenge and promote a culture of kindness, respect and wellbeing.

The curriculum has been co-designed through collaboration with schools, the University of Leeds and expert colleagues across the partnerships.

It covers the minimum entitlement set out in the Initial Teacher Training Core Content Framework and goes beyond this in an ambitious curriculum with high expectations for all.

Red Kite Trainees will:

• Know themselves and who they are as teachers, what drives them and how to maintain their own mental health.
• Know how to inspire learners in all contexts providing high quality education for
• Know the strategies that promote effective behaviour management and foster enthusiastic lifelong
• Know how to keep children and young people safe and support their mental health and well-
• Know how to use technology to effectively support the acquisition and retention of
• Know the essential cognitive science that informs the most effective classroom practice in a knowledge-rich curriculum.
• Know that planned retrieval assessments support the retention of knowledge in long term
• Know how to evaluate evidence-informed research, products and resources that support effective
• Know that knowledge comes first before skills in all subjects and should be built systematically in sequenced units of work.
• Know how to manage their own workload effectively to maintain a work life.

Based on our intent, and through our own evidence-based practice and reflection on research, we have identified six curriculum drivers that underpin our curriculum and reflect the context of our trainees and our partnership.

We believe these drivers will lead to great teaching and excellence for all.

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Subject Knowledge

• having a deep and fluent knowledge and understanding of the content
• having an awareness of pedagogical approaches and common misconceptions in relation to the content
• having knowledge of the requirements of curriculum sequencing, as well as relevant tasks and assessments that can be used for diagnostic and didactic purposes
• developing a deeper understanding of a specialism - either of a subject or within it

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Quality instruction

• knowing how to structure a sequence of learning
• utilising teaching strategies to help students know more and remember more
• matching tasks to learners’ needs and activating deeper thinking
• ensuring high levels of challenge for all

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Making a difference

• supporting all learners (including those from disadvantaged backgrounds and those with SEND)
• ensuring emotional and intellectual development is paramount in helping learners to make progress and achieve their potential
• developing literacy skills in order to improve a learner’s life chances

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Becoming a professional teacher

• adopting and maintaining high standards of ethics and behaviours
• building effective professional relationships with pupils, parents/carers and expert colleagues
• thinking hard and reflecting effectively as a practitioner and taking full ownership of long-term learning and development

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Managing behaviour

• developing a safe, secure and supportive environment that is built on effective positive relationships and mutual respect
• enabling learners to be courageous and self-motivated, able to positively engage with learning and recognising that mistakes and misconceptions are part of the learning process

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Understanding children and young people

• understanding the physical, social, emotional, and intellectual development of a child or young person
• having a working knowledge of cognitive science, embedding this in classroom practice and recognising the potential of a collaborative learning environment.

Our course is carefully planned and built around a core knowledge sequence in clear, coherent stages that are flexible and responsive to trainee needs and are not narrowed to a set of performance measures.

Professional learning activities during each stage provide increasing levels of challenge and expectations of greater independence for trainees, ultimately ensuring that trainees can meet the Teachers’ Standards (2012), be awarded QTS and be prepared for the ECF.

• Stage 1 – Preparation and Orientation
• Stage 2 – Building a Foundation
• Stage 3 – Adapting to a New Setting
• Stage 4 – Refining Skills
• Stage 4 Enhancement – Embedding, Deepening and Developing a Specialism