Teacher shortage in Milton Keynes prompts school and college to launch new part-time training programme

Milton Keynes College and Two Mile Ash Initial Teacher Training Partnership are collaborating to launch an accessible course that will be ideal for people who are already in work.

They can take a part-time Access to Higher Education course at the college to prepare them to study for a BA Hons in Primary Education with QTS at the Two Mile Ash partnership.

The aim is to enable would-be teachers to do all their training in MK and be ready to work in schools at

the end of it.

Nationally, government targets for teacher training have been missed for the past seven years with many schools struggling to recruit staff. It is hoped the new programme will help rectify this.

Kieran Grimes, the Adult Learning Lead at MK College, said: “We’ve worked with Two Mile Ash on an informal basis for a couple of years and the partnership has been incredibly effective so we thought it made sense to create a formal pathway.

"It will mean people taking an access course with us will be able to see their future mapped out in front of them right from the start.”

Kieran said a side effect of the Covid pandemic was that people have become much more confident online.

"That’s allowed us to take a blended approach to the course. All the Access course lessons will be online and recorded so they can go back to them if there’s anything they didn’t understand first time around. Access course Students will need to come to a face-to-face session once a month but the plan is to hold those on Saturdays,

again to accommodate people who’re in work.”

It’s expected that the courses will be popular with a variety of people such as classroom assistants already working in schools, returning parents and people who’ve always wanted to teach but never thought they had the right qualifications to train.

“Applicants will have to be really motivated,” Kieran says, “because it’s a lot of work, but then so it should be if we want to produce the best teachers we can for the city’s children. We’ll start them off with a short distance learning course which will all be online, just to make sure they can cope.”

Sarah Hand is the Head of Initial Teacher Training at The Two Mile Ash Partnership. She said: “We are delighted to formalise what has already been an incredibly effective relationship with Milton Keynes College. We are excited to broaden the range of opportunities we offer our potential trainees in order to continue to attract a wide range of individuals who will, with our support, become some of the very best newly qualified teachers in the area.

"We are an Outstanding and established training provider and are proud of our relationships with partners

that enable us to provide responsive opportunities for all our students.”

Anyone who would like to know more should contact Kieran by email at [email protected].