Daventry village school opens training centre to address national shortage of teachers

Six trainees have enrolled at a new training centre in a Daventry village school that has been created to help tackle the national shortage of teachers.
Daventry MP Chris Heaton-Harris unveiled the new centre last monthDaventry MP Chris Heaton-Harris unveiled the new centre last month
Daventry MP Chris Heaton-Harris unveiled the new centre last month

Guilsborough Academy's new hub is the brainchild of principal Julie Swales and was unveiled by Daventry MP Chris Heaton-Harris last month.

Beth Nunley, assistant principal at Guilsborough Academy and the teacher training lead, will be running the centre on a day-to-day basis.

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She said: "We have been aware of a decline in the number of new teachers coming through into the profession in recent years, which is resulting in a national teacher shortage as older teachers reach retirement.

"Although here at Guilsborough Academy we are fully staffed with an excellent workforce, at a local level we are seeing a shortage of teachers in maths, physics and computer science in particular and we wanted to do something proactive to address this.

"Our motto at Guilsborough Academy is ‘learning without limits’, this doesn’t just apply to our students it also applies to our staff.

"We hope the new teacher training centre will put Guilsborough Academy on the map when it comes to producing high-quality teachers who want to train and work in a range of secondary subject areas.

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"We also want to develop our training programmes for newly qualified teachers, recently qualified teachers and experienced teachers through a range of courses and continued professional development opportunities, so they can thrive within their profession."

The building, which is located at the front of Guilsborough Academy, was created by converting an old caretaker’s house on the premises.

The training centre houses several training rooms and a kitchen.

It will be working closely with nearby universities including Leicester, Bedford, Northampton and Warwick.

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Six trainee teachers have already enrolled and the team plans to support a further two teachers in its pilot year.

If the pilot year goes well, there are plans to extend the centre and provide training for teachers from secondary schools across the county in its second year.

Chris Heaton-Harris said: "It was a real pleasure to meet staff at the academy and fantastic to see the new facility.

"I know the centre will provide high-quality training to teachers and will be a real asset to the academy, offering a huge range of courses and opportunities."