I’ve just completed the Assessment Only Route (AOR) to Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) through the University of Sunderland. Here’s a review of this short course. I’ll be blogging a bit about some parts of the course in more detail when I get the chance!

What is the AOR to QTS?

(See this overview of the course from Sunderland)

It’s a short course (6-12 weeks) for experienced teachers. It leads to being awarded QTS by the Teaching Regulation Agency. This is a requirement in order to teach in (most) state schools in England. The AOR route enables you to attain QTS in England while teaching abroad.

In order to do the course, you need a minimum of two years teaching experience across two schools, and across at least two Key Stages. You also need a degree and GCSE Grade C/4 or above in English, maths and science. If you did not study GCSEs, you’ll need equivalents (or perhaps take an equivalency test).

To take the Sunderland course, you need to be currently teaching in a school that follows the English National Curriculum, or an international curriculum like IB. You also need a mentor at your school, such as a scary member of the SLT.

By the way, current cost is 2200 GBP.

Anyway, all the above info and more can be found on the overview page (see previous link).

Why was the AOR right for me?

I decided to take this course because:

⁃ I wanted to improve my teaching practice. This practical course would give me a great opportunity to do that

⁃ I’ve spent most of my career to date teaching abroad. My experience and other teaching qualifications (e.g. DipTESOL, PGCEi, MA) are certainly valuable, but do not guarantee employment in state-maintained schools in England. A return to England may be on the cards at some point, so QTS will be needed.

⁃ Not having QTS can be a stigma in international schooling. At my first international school in Bangkok, I was not placed on the teachers pay scale as I didn’t have QTS. That still bugs me. I’d rather make sure that won’t happen again.

⁃ This route allows me to get QTS as an EAL specialist (which comes under the subject category of ‘English Studies’). It is excellent to see universities like Sunderland recognizing the value of EAL as a specialism, and this pathway is actually very suited to teachers moving from more general English language teaching and into international schools.

What did the course involve?

In a nutshell, the course involved:

⁃ Providing some preliminary evidence to check eligibility

⁃ Presenting more detailed evidence during an initial interview

⁃ Completing an assessment phase in your own educational setting. This phase lasts about 12 weeks

⁃ Celebrating

But in more detail…

The application phase

Applications for the course are rolling as there are three different start dates per year.

I started my application back in October last year (aiming to start in Term 3 – March). The admissions team at the Uni were really responsive – providing lots of info and answering my questions. It’s worth noting that there are a couple of steps in this application process:

Step 1 (easy step): complete an expression of interest form and send a CV. The form just summarizes your quals and experience, no personal statement needed.

Step 2 (chunky step): compliancy phase. This is when the uni check all your prior qualifications so you need to send clear evidence. They also check suitability through a DBS/Police check, so you’ll need to prepare for that.

At Step 2, you also write a personal statement. On the application form, it mentions that the personal statement is ‘crucial’ for determining your suitability for the course. You write (up to) 2000 words responding to 5 key questions related to various teaching standards, so it really does need thinking about. These are the questions:

What does a good lesson look like and how do you ensure that your learning environment and lessons are inclusive to all ability levels and learner types?

Explain your taught curriculum over the course of the year, indicate the schemes of work used, your involvement in longer term planning (particularly departmental and team planning) and how you stay current with your curriculum and subject-specific knowledge.

How do you assess pupils (both formative and summative), collect and organise data and use this to facilitate pupil progress (both short and long term) for all ability levels?

How do you facilitate appropriate behaviour management strategies and a positive behaviour for learning environment in your classroom and in the wider school?

How do you adhere to the professional standards and knowledge required from a teacher and to what extent are you aware of safeguarding within the school setting?

If successful, you will also need to answer those same questions in a face-to-face interview (see next bit), so the personal statement is effectively a planning stage for that.

This is the compliancy checklist:

Note: you DON’T actually need to have a formal portfolio of evidence (number 6) at the compliancy stage of application. You submit all the other info, THEN your application is ‘forwarded to the next stage’. That’s the interview…

The application phase may seem rigorous, but it sets you up well for the interview. It’s well thought out, comprehensive, and communication from the admissions team was very clear throughout.

The interview phase

There are two things you need to prepare for the interview:

⁃ a 20-minute presentation in which you address the same questions as in the personal statement. You should provide clear evidence from your own practice where relevant.

⁃ a portfolio of evidence covering the full range of teacher’s standards outlined by the Department of Education. The teacher’s standards can be found here. You are asked to compile your evidence in Box – an online file storage site.

I had one month between the email inviting me to interview and the interview itself. This gave me approximately 3 weeks to start compiling my portfolio of evidence – the assessor needs about a week before the interview to review your portfolio. So, the earlier you start gathering evidence, the better. Bear in mind that you will have lots/most/all of the evidence from your own teaching practice already, as you’re a practicing teacher. It may seem daunting to compile, but it’s often easier to find the evidence than it might seem at first.

The interview itself lasts around 90 minutes (although block out 2 hours if, like me, you’re a rambler). It’s a one-to-one interview with the main assessor from the uni, and consists of three parts:

⁃ An exploratory chat. You chat with the assessor about your experience to date, your educational ethos, your reasons for taking the AOR, etc. The assessor asks lots of probing questions just to learn more about you as an educator, but it’s not like an inquisition or anything!

⁃ Presentation. You deliver your 20 minute presentation live. The assessor watches/listens, follows up with some questions, etc

⁃ An audit of your portfolio. The assessor shares their evaluation of your evidence so far. They explain which of the teacher standards have been evidenced well, and which require more evidence as you move into the assessment phase.

The interview stage was awesome. My assessor was really supportive and seemed genuinely interested in my teaching context. The presentation was daunting, but the follow-up questions led to a really worthwhile chat. I thought this was, again, a well structured stage of the course. The audit at the end was super useful as it provided really clear guidance and areas of focus for the assessment phase.

The assessment phase

If your interview is a success then the assessment phase begins! This lasts up to 12 weeks. For this phase, you are assigned an assessor from the university, and you interact often with a mentor at your school. During the 12 weeks, you…

⁃ are regularly observed by your mentor (minimum 6 observations)

⁃ submit a video recording of one of your lessons for a mid-point assessment. This is evaluated by your designated assessor at the university, and you receive thorough feedback

⁃ undertake a final observation, in which you are observed live by the university assessor via MS Teams (or in person).

⁃ meet with your mentor often to talk about progress, next steps, and to complete lots of forms!

I loved this phase, and it flew by. The assessor at the uni was laid-back, supportive (again), and gave really constructive feedback. My mentor at the school was my line manager, who was awesome throughout the process. This gave us a great opportunity to get to know each other’s practice more, discuss approaches, share knowledge of our learners, and so on. I can’t really judge the course itself on the quality of my own mentor as that varies for everyone! But I can say that the course provided us with a worthwhile chance to collaborate. As a result, I feel that my own practice, and our understanding of teaching and learning in our context, has moved forward in some ways. The course created the conditions for that.

There was a lot of admin during this phase. This included:

⁃ Three ‘checkpoint’ forms assessing progress and next steps. Completed after meetings between me and my mentor

⁃ Formal lesson plans completed on a proforma from uni of Sunderland

⁃ Feedback and reflection on observed lessons

⁃ ‘Career planning’ documents for after the course

This is not a criticism as they are all worthwhile/necessary docs. It is just worth bearing in mind that you and your mentor will need to find time to meet quite often during the assessment phase.

Completing the course

If your assessment process is a success, the uni assessor recommends you for QTS. I couldn’t believe this, but the process from the university making their recommendation to me receiving confirmation of QTS from the Teaching Regulation Agency was… 2 days. I have never known a process like this to be so quick.

Overall

I’m struggling to find fault in the AOR course through Sunderland. The uni have led the way in AOR courses and it’s clearly been honed over the years – it was a very smooth process.

This isn’t like a ‘check you meet a minimum requirement’ type course, this is more of a ‘confirm you are already an experienced teacher that is worthy of QTS’. My interactions with the assessors were representative of that. They talked to me more as a fellow educator and (kind of) an equal, and that gave me confidence and made me feel they were on my side. My mentor was very much the same, and having that confidence from both parties allowed me to be the real me as a teacher. It’s liberating for a course to be like that – the closest to that I’ve done before was the DipTESOL.

I guess if there was one tiny thing I’d change about the course, it would be the wording of that compliancy checklist, to clarify that the portfolio of evidence is needed prior to the interview, but it doesn’t need to be complete at that point. That nearly gave me a heart attack. But if that’s my only (pedantic) criticism, well…

I’d highly recommend this course to any of my former colleagues who have moved into EAL from roles at the British Council. I’d say it’s perfect for experienced EALers, especially if you might head back home at some point (or to avoid stigma and pay scale challenges). But I don’t want to suggest it is solely a means to an end – I got tons more that I expected from the AOR process and certainly wasn’t just a box ticker.

Rating

Solid 5/5. One of the best courses I’ve done.

Categories: General, reviews, teacher development

Tags: AOR, assessment only, eal, international school, QTS, qualified teacher status, UK, University of Sunderland