MDX’s teaching training courses given glowing rating by Ofsted inspectors

Ofsted rated initial teacher training courses as ‘outstanding’ in their newly released report

Middlesex University’s initial teacher training courses have been given a glowing ranking from Ofsted with its secondary age courses rated as ‘outstanding’.

Ofsted, which assesses skills and education providers for the government, carried out an inspection at MDX during the week of March 4.

This rigorous inspection was carried out by nine of His Majesty’s and three Ofsted inspectors who spoke with nearly 80 trainees and early career teachers, observed numerous teaching sessions, analysed content, interviewed all relevant staff and visited 20 schools linked to MDX’s teacher training programme.

In a report released this week (Initial teacher education report), the University’s Initial Teacher Education (ITE) secondary-age phase courses, which currently have 76 trainees, are judged ‘outstanding’ for overall effectiveness, quality of education and training, leadership and management. For the primary age-phase, with 222 trainees, courses were judged as ‘good’ in all categories.

Middlesex University goes ‘out of its way’ to support trainees on their journey to become qualified teachers, while subject tutors are experts in their field and build trainees’ learning in a logical order, the report added. Inspectors also praised the consistency of mentoring and strong communication between partner schools and university staff and the comprehensive range of documents to support schools who host trainees.

Primary and secondary ITE courses place a strong focus on enabling trainees to apply what they have learned at the centre to the everyday classroom, Ofsted reported. They added trainee teachers are prepared for the realities of teaching and gain the expertise to foster curiosity and a love of learning in the pupils that they teach.

Ofsted spoke glowingly of the secondary age phase, saying its ‘highly aspirational and rich training programme’, enabled its trainees to be ‘fully ready for and confident about embarking on their future career’. Mentoring is ‘top notch’ and trainees are ‘well versed’ in helping students who have special educational needs in the secondary age phase, according to Ofsted.

MDX has 114 partnership schools in the primary phase and 70 secondary ones and works with approximately seven all-through schools from primary to secondary.

Dr Victoria Brook, Head of ITE at Middlesex University, said, “We are delighted that Ofsted have recognised the high quality of our teacher training courses, the personalised care from programme tutors and the strength of mentoring provided by our partnership schools. Middlesex graduate teachers are passionate about education and wholly committed to ensuring that all children and young people can experience inspiring teaching in good schools. Our upgraded ‘outstanding’ secondary and very strong primary ‘good’ judgement, is a very well-deserved testament to the expertise, dedication and vision of our programme teams and the commitment from Middlesex Student Support and Professional Services teams to provide high quality support.”

The University offers a number of initial teacher education courses, which for primary age include a three-year BA in Primary Education, the Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE), and salaried routes, including a postgraduate teacher apprenticeship programme. For secondary teachers these include the PGCE, salaried routes and teacher apprenticeship programme. All courses are based at the Hendon campus in London and offer expert teaching and high-quality resources to facilitate teacher training. For more information about teacher training courses at Middlesex University.

Photo Credit: MChe Lee