Professional Studies Programme – White Rose Alliance

As part of the course, all White Rose Alliance trainees participate in a comprehensive professional studies programme at King James´s School. Every Wednesday morning all WRA trainees, no matter which university course or subject, come together at King James´s School for a core part of their training.

The aim of the WRA Professional Studies programme is to underpin trainee development, addressing the minimum entitlement set out in the Initial Teacher Training Core Content Framework. Trainees will follow a programme to develop & extend their knowledge & skills. Each session is strategically scheduled to ensure maximum benefit to the trainees at the most appropriate points in their training. It is a wide ranging programme encompassing development of classroom skills & knowledge through to trainee well-being & future job success.

The programme utilises the wealth of knowledge, diversity, experience & skills of staff from across our partner schools & the trainees as a group get to experience a selection of different schools too through the school experience days built into the programme.

Not only do the weekly professional skills sessions support the development of the trainees & provide a sound foundation at the start of their professional careers, they are an essential opportunity for the trainees to come together & establish a peer support network, to discuss shared experiences & obtain advice & guidance from each other as well as WRA staff

Really enjoyed the WRA Professional Studies sessions - nice to see the other trainees once a week and have a catch-up/chat about things to see how everyone is doing/share ideas, as everyone is going through the same thing. The WRA sessions were really beneficial and had a good range of people talking to us, from Headteachers to NQTs and getting tips and tricks and then being able to test them out in lessons and see what works for us.

The commitment to running the programme in school where possible has been fantastic, ensuring we as a cohort cold bon, talk and support each other on our journeys this year.

Wednesdays were one of m favourite days of the week. Informative sessions, supportive staff and great to be able to cha to all the other trainees.

I thought that the professional studies programme was excellent and provided a broad variety of subjects. The variety of staff who delivered the PS sessions and their different methods was hugely interesting.

Really enjoyed all the PS days and they have been some of the highlights of my week in terms of what I have learnt and useful information to takeaway. Can't rate these days highly enough in terms of how they have helped my progression through the years not to mention the support of other trainees, and the WRA staff (who are fantastic!).

I loved the WRA PS sessions. They have not only been of extremely and appropriate content that links directly to what we need to know and what we need to develop as trainee teachers, but also a wonderful opportunity to meet as a cohort and share out best practices and reflections in a safe space together. The sessions have been tailored to our needs throughout the year, for example the first sessions about behavior and classroom management and lesson planning and delivery were perfectly timed as we started out year, and more recent end of year sessions have been on interviewing and developing resilience as teachers. These PS sessions are so valuable and I think my advice o future trainees is to take a notepad dedicated to these sessions and really learn as much as you can whilst you are in the presence of the experts!/