School Standards Minister praises ATLP’s North Birmingham Teaching School Hub after visit

The UK’s new Schools Standards Minister went back to school, when he saw where North Birmingham’s teachers are trained in a whistle-stop visit to Sutton Coldfield.

 Jonathan Gullis, who became the Minister for School Standards in September, visited the highly respected Arthur Terry Learning Partnership’s North Birmingham Teaching School Hub, which is currently training hundreds of new and existing teachers in the North Birmingham area through their ITT, ECF and NPQ programmes.

The partnership, which is made up of 20 schools in Birmingham, North Warwickshire and Staffordshire, runs one of 87 Teaching School Hubs (TSHs) across the country.

The North Birmingham Hub sits at the centre of a network of schools across the north of the city, working with teachers to help them develop their skills, build up experience, share knowledge and earn their professional qualifications.

During the visit Mr Gullis, who spent eight years working as a teacher – most recently at Fairfax Academy – was able to chat to teachers taking part in school leadership training and find out about the work of the hub, including Arthur Terry’s School Centred Initial Teacher Training (SCITT), which has recently been designated as an OFSTED outstanding provider. 

He also watched youngsters being taught Spanish and talked to school leaders about future plans including funding and recruitment.

Mr Gullis said: “It was such a pleasure to be back in Sutton Coldfield, where I ended my teaching career before I became a member of Parliament.

 “Here at the Arthur Terry Learning Partnership, I saw brilliant work on display with over 400 of teachers going through their National Professional Qualifications. Hundreds of teachers who have been through the initial teacher training programme provided here are now working in classroom across the city. It’s one of the great success stories of our education revolution since 2010 and I’m just very, very grateful to have had the opportunity to come and see it at first hand.”

Jonathan Gullis, Minister for School Standards

Cathryn Mortimer, Director of the Teaching School Hub, said: “It was great to able to show the Minister around the Hub, and I think it was especially useful for him to be able to talk to the NPQ delegates who were undergoing training, to get their views.

“Teacher training is perhaps the key mechanism for school improvement. If you get good teachers into the classroom everything else falls into place.

“ATLP’s North Birmingham Teaching School Hub is playing an important role in not only launching the careers of local teachers, but also collaborating with a network of schools to support them as they teach in local classrooms.”

Richard Gill CBE, CEO of the Arthur Terry Learning Partnership and chair of the Teaching Schools Council, said: “We were delighted to welcome School Standards Minister Jonathan Gullis to see the work being done here at our Teaching School Hub.

“As a former teacher, he was very interested in talking to the teachers being trained, to understand their experiences.

“I hope his visit showed that we continue to provide high quality school-to-school support, teacher training and the professional development of staff.”

Captions:

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Cathryn Mortimer, Director of the Teaching School Hub and Arthur Terry headteacher Samantha Kibble, Schools Standards Minister Jonathan Gullis and Richard Gill CBE, CEO of the Arthur Terry Learning Partnership.

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School standards minister Jonathan Gullis, who until recently was a teacher at Fairfax Academy in Sutton Coldfield, talks to teachers taking part in training at the North Birmingham Teaching School Hub at Arthur Terry.

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Jonathan Gullis talks to Cathryn Mortimer, Director of the Teaching School Hub and Arthur Terry headteacher Samantha Kibble.