The Community Academies Trust Teaching School

The CAT Teaching School is a unique blend of two Teaching Schools; The Polesworth School and Birchwood Primary. Covering a wide geographical area including Warwickshire, Staffordshire and Telford & Wrekin, we operate in a variety of contexts, bringing about continuous school improvement in our local areas across primary and secondary sectors.

Teacher Subject Specialism Training (TSST)
Working in partnership with Birmingham City University and the University of Plymouth, we offer FREE TSST Courses in Year 6/7 Maths, Secondary Maths, French and Physics to:

• Qualified teachers whose initial training was not in these subjects and who find themselves spending a considerable time teaching them
• Teachers who are returning to teaching after a career break;
• Teachers from a different phase of education.
• Initial Teacher Training – School Direct

Our Alliance offers both salaried and non-salaried training places in both primary and secondary settings and provides the opportunity for trainees to experience teaching in a wide variety of contexts. All of our training courses are supported by University of Warwick or University of Chester.

We strongly advocate school based ITT training to sustain and develop the teaching workforce in schools. The benefits of engaging with this route are:
You are more likely to recruit the right person for you;
You can customise the training to suit the needs of your school and trainee;
Your trainees get on board very quickly;
You will snap up the best new talent;

We represent our partners at national and regional Train to Teach events in Birmingham, Derby, Shrewsbury, Coventry and Nuneaton. Attendance at these events has led to a number of successful recruitment outcomes and we intend to maintain our presence at these high profile events in future.

Subject Knowledge Enhancement (SKE)

Bespoke Subject Knowledge Enhancement courses are available to trainees who receive a conditional offer of an ITT place. We deliver courses in Maths, Physics, Biology, Chemistry Geography, D&T and French. These can be from 8 to 36 weeks and can be completed by distance learning in some subjects. Bursaries are available for trainees and courses can be undertaken either before or during the ITT training course.

For further information please see our website http://catteachingschool.org.
Alternatively you can contact:

Michelle Borders, Teaching School Administrator at m.borders@thepolesworthschool.com; tel: 01827 702205.
Alexis Rickus, Deputy Headteacher The Polesworth School and Director of Teaching School A.Rickus@thepolesworthschool.com