School Direct Celebration

School Direct Trainees (from left to right: Mark McKay, Louise Elson, Tom Holding and John Thomason) pictured here celebrating the successful completion of their teacher training course at DACA.

Since September they have been working towards their PGCE (Post Graduate Certificate of Education) and QTS (Qualified Teacher Status) in schools within BwD. Before Christmas they were at either BCHS or DVHS; they joined us on placement at DACA in January. DACA is the lead school within the alliance.

School Direct is run in collaboration with the University of Cumbria. Trainees spend 12 days of the academic year at the Lancaster campus, training in their specialist subjects. Weekly training is provided at DACA every Friday, this covers wider educational issues (e.g. lesson planning; Assessment for Learning; English as an additional language; questioning; gifted and talented etc.).