The placement year is an important part of the undergraduate offering at the University of Bath. And whilst school teaching is a clearly-defined graduate career, paid teaching placements have not been common. Even less common have been teaching placements taking place in schools in our city and region.
In her role as regional education lead at the university, Professor Jane White has been developing links with local schools, encouraging them to advertise placement opportunities within their schools or academy trusts.
The model, which has been trialled this year with Oldfield School in Bath, is to employ a placement student as a teaching assistant. This is a very general role within schools and involves supporting school pupils across the range of curriculum subjects. However, the placement has been tailored to allow the placement student, in this case a student from the Department of Mathematical Sciences, to spend a significant proportion of their time within the Maths department.
The placement initiative supports the Department of Mathematical Sciences with its commitment to encourage students to consider teaching mathematics as a career (TeMaC). TeMaC is a national initiative administered by the London Mathematical Society which Jane established when she was a member of their Education Committee.
Jane comments:
The shortage of suitably qualified teachers working in our schools is not a new issue. It has been around for decades. Financial incentives have failed to recruit or to retain teachers in the numbers that we need. TeMaC marks a different approach. It puts some responsibility on universities to find ways to encourage students to consider teaching as a career. So I am really delighted that we have developed a mechanism for students to explore teaching during their placement year in a way that I hope will build strength in educational links between our university and other educational providers in the city and region.
The potential to create a virtuous circle of quality education for our region is demonstrated very clearly at Oldfield School. Our placement student, Jack Slade, is part of a maths department where five staff members, including the Head of Department, together with a PGCE student from Bath Spa University are all UoB alumni. TeMaC in Bath is also a collaboration between the two universities in the city since Bath Spa University is our local teacher training provider.
Tamsin Smith coordinates TeMaC in the Department of Mathematical Sciences. She says:
In Bath, we are seeing how collaboration across schools and universities can actively strengthen the pathway into mathematics education. By working together, we’re creating a supportive network that helps skilled mathematicians move into teaching. This shared commitment across our local education community is an important step in addressing the national shortage of maths teachers and ensuring that young people continue to benefit from high-quality mathematics teaching.
And as a placement opportunity, the teaching assistant role seems to be working well. Jack comments:
I am privileged to be able to work at Oldfield alongside a wonderful team of teachers. I’m benefitting from the overall experience and developing my skills as I learn how to effectively support students both academically and pastorally. The ability to utilise a placement year to prepare myself for work in the future has been a real advantage that I will use whilst completing my PGCE.
Plans are underway to expand the placement offering for next year with the Midsomer Norton Schools Partnership already committed to offering schools placements across their multi-academy trust schools and Bath College indicating interest in offering opportunities within the Further Education sector.
If you would like to find out more about this initiative, either as a student or as a staff member, you are warmly invited to attend an in-person meeting on Wednesday 10 December when you can hear directly from senior school leaders at Oldfield and MNSP as well as from Jack! Please visit our Eventbrite page for more information about the event, and to sign up.