Teacher Training

Exciting News! From 2025-26, a new Cheshire East Teacher Training Hub will be opening, led by Ashdene Primary School

At Ashdene, we strive for excellence: everyone, everywhere, every day. This underpins all that we do and as an outstanding school, we are passionate about developing and inspiring future generations of teachers who are able to motivate students to be the best that they can be. We are fully committed to training and developing the very best primary teachers who are willing to go the extra mile to invest in their pupils’ academic achievement and personal development.

Through our programme you will learn about all aspects of what it means to be a teacher. We work alongside Manchester NEXUS SCITT and pride ourselves on being at the cutting edge of current educational research. Our course is a careful blend of theory and practice, which will provide you with first hand experiences on how young people learn best, gaining QTS and a PGCE as you do so. What better way to learn and experience teaching than in the classroom?

As part of our ITT programme, your experience will be very much school-centred. Over the course of the year, you will develop your teaching practice through experiencing contrasting placements across our network of carefully selected partner schools. Furthermore, your teaching practice will be supported by sessions with your dedicated and experienced mentor who will offer continuous support and feedback. Trainee teachers spend 4 days per week in their school placement setting gaining invaluable knowledge which is enhanced by a weekly training day following Ashdene’s carefully planned and sequenced teacher training curriculum. These training days are delivered by experienced practitioners who are specialists in their subject area.

By choosing a school-centred programme you will engage in first hand experiences to learn on the job, meaning you will be well prepared for the transition from trainee to class teacher.

Throughout the course of the year, trainees will have three assessed placements across two different placement settings. These will take place across two different key stages and will follow an A/B/A model:

By starting your placement A in September, trainees are able to establish strong relationships within their settings and gain a deep understanding of how class teachers establish clear routines and expectations at the beginning of a school year. Furthermore, as a school-centred programme, trainees will be in schools for the majority of the school year, enabling them to understand how schools operate across an academic year.