Inclusive teacher training in special schools

The national SEND and Inclusion Conference, hosted in partnership by TEAM Education Trust and Triumph Learning Trust, provided a welcome opportunity for Ark Teacher Training (ATT) to share our experiences of training teachers in special schools.

The annual conference, held in Nottingham this year, brings together voices from across education who have a role in working with young children with additional needs – from SENDCOs, inclusion leads and head teachers, through to CEOs and representatives from local authorities, charities and social enterprise.

Deputy head of ATT, Amy Walters, and Ryan Kendall, ATT primary curriculum lead and tutor, were invited to run a workshop on working with special schools to train the next generation of teachers within those contexts.

The conference was a chance to share how ATT develops trainees within special schools, and to reflect on the ongoing challenges and opportunities for professionals who work in these settings every day. 

For the past three years, ATT has partnered with Lift Schools, who have several special schools in their network.

This has helped us evolve our initial teacher training beyond the mainstream classroom, and to develop confident and proficient teachers who can embark on their career in any school setting.

Special schools – like many in the sector – are facing increased pressure to support more children and to increase the number of high-quality teachers in the face of increasing funding challenges. ATT has supported five special schools to train 17 teachers to date: 12 have achieved qualified teacher status, and five are currently in their ATT training year.

Reflecting on the workshop, Amy said, “It was great to speak to teachers and educational leaders facing similar challenges and explore the potential solution of working in partnership together.

“We’re keen to work with more special schools to train more teachers for these settings, and I’m looking forward to some interesting follow-up discussions!”

“A highlight was exploring a partnership with alternative provisions – I’m excited about the prospect of training teachers for that context!”

Ryan added, “It was particularly useful to share experiences with fellow professionals about some of the difficulties as well as some of the unique aspects of teacher training in special schools.

“It was valuable to discuss teacher training techniques that positively impact pupils in both mainstream and special schools – and how these can be best developed in trainee teachers through a model of instructional coaching.” 

The ATT story

Teacher training plays a critical role in securing good outcomes for students. The Ark Teacher Training school-centred initial teacher training programme was developed to ensure a pipeline of excellent teachers working in Ark schools.

ATT now works with many schools beyond the Ark network and has trained 1,250 trainees since 2013.

The programme has been rated ‘Outstanding’ by Ofsted twice and worked with over 110 schools in 35 local authorities: primary, secondary, and increasingly, special schools.