Tracey Maloney
Director of Initial Teacher Training
Subject Specificity is at the heart of what we do. We say this a great deal and at e-Q, we really mean it. It is not always easy to achieve but we feel that it is the cornerstone of our model, and we work very hard to preserve it.
The eQ programme is structured around subject and phase communities, headed up by subject and phase leads. We feel that this offers us the opportunity to embody subject and phase in the fullest sense. All programme staff are subject experts, they contribute within their field and have forged strong links to their subject and relative associations.
Secondary trainees have nine subject days where they can fully develop their substantive and disciplinary knowledge, taking them beyond the specifications they may teach and exploring the breadth of the subject. Trainees actively develop subject knowledge even further; we build on and demonstrate the need to hone subject knowledge as a career long aim.
Primary trainees have twelve days developing the core subjects of Phonics, Maths and English, along with training days dedicated to each Foundation subject. Accompanied by our own ‘textbook’ detailing the substantive and disciplinary knowledge within each subject means that trainees are continually improving their own expertise.
We work creatively to offer high quality subject specific experiences.
We work hard to remove genericism from the training of our trainee teachers and ensure that we allow the subject lens to permeate the work of our core training days. Yes, of course everyone focuses on Behaviour in their core training, as it is an important quality first teaching principle, but the subject gaze is paramount. Secondary PE will approach this in a way that differs from Secondary Science which is again different from Primary phase colleagues. Shared evidence base but distinct subject lens, it’s at the heart of what we do.
You can learn more about each subject and phase in e-Qualitas’ teacher training programme by following the links below: