Placement Experience

The Teachers' Standards are clearly defined by the DfE. Each Standard must be sufficiently demonstrated by the end of the course in order to pass the training programme and be recommended for QTS. Regular meetings and/or tutorials with ITT Mentors and University tutors. Key strengths and development targets will be captured at the end of each phase of training in Phase Review Forms.

There is NO requirement for trainees to maintain a separate evidence file or portfolio of evidence. Suitable evidence will emerge from effective planning, teaching and assessing. ITT mentors will verify evidence of trainees’ progress, through witnessing their contributions to school life and to pupil progress and through confirming progress at review points and at the final triangulation meeting.

Responsibility for providing evidence lies with the teacher in training whose progress will be monitored by the ITT Mentor, Professional Mentor and the Liaison Tutor. The final triangulation meeting will draw on evidence to support the final outcome for each teacher in training against the Teachers’ Standards.

Placement Experience File and QTS Training and Development File

NB: The Placement Experience File and QTS Training and Development File are a requirement at any phase of training to meet the expectations of the placement and MUST be of a professional standard and meet the requirements of the programme.

The Placement Experience File

Evidence is a key element in the assessment of the Teachers' Standards; it will be found in the Placement Experience file and the QTS Training and Development file. The importance of these cannot be over-emphasised.

Although the files are working documents, they must also be of a professional standard and will be scrutinised by ITT Mentors and Liaison Tutors. They must be kept up to date and available at all times, and will be part of the overall assessment towards the recommendation for QTS. They will be retained until the end of the course and may be examined by External Examiners for the course and Ofsted inspectors.

The Placement Experience File needs to be organised and available for scrutiny. Where contents are kept electronically, they must be available and kept securely so that all those involved in training are able to evaluate and monitor their quality.

It should include:

• Timetable and Training Programme
  Planned events and activities.
• Teaching and Learning Record
  By class/group, schemes of work, units and subsequent lesson plans, resources, evaluation of lessons, action planning.
• Records of pupil progress and attainment
  Records of attendance, marks, grades, formative achievement and targets, samples of pupils’ work and marking for the classes and pupils taught.
• Whole School/Extra Curricular Activities
  These can be subject specific or whole school activities (school trips, clubs, sporting activities, drama and music activities).

QTS Training and Development File and the Placement Experience File

The QTS Training and Development file is an essential record of the training received in school, evidencing progress towards being recommended for Qualified Teacher Status and recording where evidence of achieving the Teachers’ Standards can be found. This file is thus the key mechanism for the Partnership to ensure and verify that each trainee may be recommended for QTS at the end of their training course and will form part of the final assessment (triangulation).

The QTS Training and Development file along with the Placement Experience file(s) must be available in school at all times (the QTS Training and Development file is a One Drive folder and it is advisable that Placement Experience files are electronic too) Links should be shared with Liaison Tutors and ITT Mentors.

Failure to maintain either file to an appropriate standard can result in a recommendation for QTS being withheld as it is a sign of failing to meet the standards for Professional Conduct.

QTS Training and Development File

This houses a record of your progress as a teacher and the training and feedback which you have received during your programme. It MUST be organised and regularly updated. LJMU and school-based staff have access to this file and will check it regularly. You must share a link with relevant staff.

As a student of LJMU, you are entitled to download a full version of Office 365 from the LJMU website. OneDrive comes with this software. OneDrive is a cloud based storage providing access to your files from any internet connected device. OneDrive provides 1TB (1000GB) of FREE storage for ALL LJMU students.

If you choose to store your folder electronically in another way eg. Google Drive, please ensure it is backed up, cannot be lost if equipment fails you and can easily be shared with your ITT Mentor and Liaison Tutor.

You should create a folder on your OneDrive called – 'QTS Training and Development File', which should then have 9 sub-folders as detailed below.

You need to train yourself to systematically and regularly save appropriate documents in the right place. If you do this, life will be sweet, if you don’t you are likely to quickly come unstuck!

The file and its sub folders must be organised and labelled as follows:

Title	What you save in it.
Sub-folder 1: School-based training - Weekly Meetings	Typed up Records of weekly meetings with your ITT Mentor saved in DATE order. These should start from your first or second week in school.
Sub-folder 2: Observations of YOUR teaching by others	Stored copies of any lesson analysis forms (LAFs) of your teaching completed electronically by your ITT Mentor/ school staff in DATE order. These won’t generally start until Phase 2 (unless you are School Direct Salaried or UG PrimaryTrainee). Some ITT Mentors prefer to hand write observations on printed forms. You can photograph these or download a pdf scanner app to take a record of them e.g. Genius Scan, and upload them to your on-line electronic folder. You should ensure these cover a range of key stages (and in primary a range of curriculum subjects).
Sub-folder 3: School-based Phase Reviews.	Copies of all Interim and Final Review Forms for each Phase (or Term for Salaried). These must also be uploaded to Abyasa as PDFs; failure to do so can result in a recommendation for QTS being withheld. Submission dates for these are on the website, Section B, for each programme. They are completed by your ITT Mentor.
Sub-folder 4: Tracking your progress towards QTS – Meeting the Teachers' Standards	An appropriately completed LJMU ITT Tracker including (by the end of Phase 3) completed audit pages of where the evidence to support your progress can be found. Please download a copy of the LJMU ITT Tracker from Section C of the website. The LJMU ITT Tracker documents the evidence showing your progress towards meeting the Teachers’ Standards. There is a short reflection for you to complete about your progress at the end of each Phase.
Sub-folder 5: Subject Knowledge Development	Any relevant Subject Knowledge Audits, Improvement and Development plans and evidence of addressing subject knowledge targets with which you are required to engage during your programme. For Secondary trainees, Subject Knowledge Development (SKD) will include for example, audits and activities of essential concepts, knowledge, skills and principles of the subject, to demonstrate the progress of your SKD over time. (Subject leads will advise you of the content required during the phases of your training.) For Primary trainees it should include English and Maths Audits and your Foundation Subjects Audit, along with any required Development Plans and evidence of developing your subject knowledge across the breadth of the curriculum. Programme leaders will guide you about this section, but it is a place to capture work which you have done which developed your Subject Knowledge. If you have had written notes etc., then please photograph them/use a scanner app and upload them to this section.
Sub-folder 6: School-based training activities	Notes from school-based training activities and from any Professional Development Activities. This includes notes from your own observations of expert practitioners in school. If you have had written notes etc., then please photograph them/use a scanner app and upload them to this section. Please don’t type notes up for the sake of it.
Sub-folder 7: Personal Tutoring	Records of Personal Tutor meetings. Programme leaders will guide you about this section.
Sub-folder 8: Moving between schools	Records of transfer information completed and shared between placements. Appropriate documents will be shared with you for this section.
Sub-folder 9: Feedback from Liaison Tutor	This section will include relevant notes from Liaison Tutor meetings, including comments on the QTS file itself.

Criteria for the Placement Experience and QTS Training and Development Files

The Placement Experience file and QTS Training and Development file are:

• a requirement for meeting the placement expectations at any Phase of Training;
• professional working documents to support teaching, learning and assessment;
• evidence to support developing competence;
• evidence of achieving the Teachers' Standards;
• the basis of recommendation for QTS.

They must be:

• available at all times in school for all tutors and ITT Mentors to view;
• kept up to date and reviewed by ITT Mentors and Liaison Tutors;
• well organised into sections;
• available at University debriefing and review sessions..

Completing and reviewing the contents will help the trainee to:

• think critically and reflectively about teaching, learning and assessment practice;
• reflect on whole school issues;
• consider how well they are meeting the Teacher's Standards for recommendation for QTS.

Other Documentation (Section E)

Professional Development Activities. These are school-based tasks related to the focus of each Phase of Training. Where PDAs are compulsory within a particular Phase of Training this will be indicated by the Programme team and may form part of the weekly meeting discussion. PDAs may also be used to personalise the learning of individual trainees, either to develop areas of relative weakness where evidence is lacking or to enhance existing expertise.