Declining Teacher Population Prompts New Local Pathways into the Profession

Every year, more teachers leave the teaching profession than enter it – ongoing declines in teacher retention mean that nationally, now more than ever, we need to consider new ways to attract new teachers into the classroom. This pressure on teacher recruitment is set to continue, with student numbers projected to rise by 7% by 2026.

With over 50,000 students across its member organisations, Luminate Education Group say they are acutely aware of the need to ensure that the teacher pipeline across the Leeds City Region is not only sustained during these challenging times of a national decline in teacher population but broadened in terms of offering a suite of unique teacher training opportunities tailored for a previously uncatered-for audience across the city. This is a deliberate move to ensure that Leeds and its surrounding areas have not only enough teachers entering this profession to satisfy steadily increasing student numbers, but to provide a greater number of opportunities and broadened pathways into teaching careers to allow for an increasingly diverse workforce which is technically skilled and highly motivated.

The Luminate Partnership for Initial Teacher Training, based at the new Teacher Development Centre in the centre of Leeds asserts the motto ‘Great Teaching Starts With YOU’ – the message is clear that no matter your academic or current career starting point, they are keen to assist the teacher in you to succeed, through their new pathways into teaching. Their teacher training offer includes apprenticeships and top up degree courses – non-traditional routes into a teaching career, leading to Qualified Teacher Status.

“Keen to diversify”

The aspiration is to attract local people who are considering a change in career or trying to decide what to do after their studies and wanting to make a positive difference in the city we live in.

Nicola Widnall, Vice Principal at Luminate Education Group says, “We are very clear in our ambition to try and plug the teacher gap for our young people, but also to offer a route into the profession for people who may not have considered teaching before or who are rethinking their next steps professionally, particularly in the aftermath of recent months. We are keen to diversify not only our workforce to reflect more accurately the communities which we are so proud to serve, but also to offer new and different ways into a career which makes a real difference to the young people in our charge, whilst offering attractive entry salaries along with a myriad of other staff benefits.”

More information on how you can train to teach with the Luminate Partnership for ITT can be found at www.luminateitt.co.uk, or by emailing initialteachertraining@luminate.ac.uk directly.