York St John’s ‘outstanding’ teacher education highlighted in Ofsted report

A newly published Ofsted report has rated York St John University ‘outstanding’ for its secondary teacher education and ‘good’ for its primary programmes.

York St John, which has been training teachers for 170 years, received particular praise for its recruitment and selection process and for its leadership. The report states: “The selection procedures are rigorous and ensure that trainees have the expertise and personal qualities to becoming effective teachers.”

The report says that a key strength of the university is: “Quality trainees who display good professional attributes and become reflective professionals with high expectations of themselves and their pupils.” It highlighted secondary education trainees as “highly motivated, independent and committed”.

Currently the university has 550 graduates working in secondary and primary schools across Yorkshire and Teesside. This year it received 2950 applications for 338 places across undergraduate and postgraduate teaching education programmes.

Commenting on the Ofsted report Mike Hickman, Head of Initial Teacher Education, said: “The report is testament to the very high levels of commitment and achievement of both our teaching staff and our trainees. It confirms that we are innovative and excel in our approach to training teachers.

“I am particularly pleased to see that the inspectors singled out for praise our selection process which we believe ensures that we recruit the very best and most highly motivated future teachers.”