The Girls’ Schools Association (GSA) is a professional association that supports and inspires specialists in girls’ education and provides development opportunities in a friendly, collaborative environment.
Our schools provide:
- excellent career opportunities
- good discipline and behaviour
- flexibility and freedom
- commitment to nurturing the individual
- small class sizes
- ethos of high expectations
- diverse range of extra-curricular activities
- culture of valuing and respecting teachers
- commitment to social mobility (around one third of independent school pupils receive means-tested bursary support)
- strong commitment to your continued professional development
- wide variety of schools (e.g. small, large, day, boarding, rural, city)
National Maths & Physics and Modern Languages SCITTs
GSA schools work in partnership with other state and independent schools to provide the National Mathematics and Physics SCITT* (NMAPS) and the National Modern Languages SCITT (NMLS). Training with the NMAPS or NMLS in a GSA school offers you:
- unsalaried on-the-job training eligible for significant tax-free bursaries, scholarships and early career payments of up to £32k
- professional development and support to both QTS and PGCE
- pre-course residential induction (NMAPS only)
- six-week placement in a contrasting state school
- links to the National Subject Associations
- phased progression towards independent teaching of whole classes
Currently, the GSA schools you can base your SCITT in are Bolton School (NMAPS & NMLS), Headington School, King’s High Warwick and Wycombe Abbey (NMAPS) and St Helen and St Katharine School (NMLS). A number of other independent and state schools are available.
*School Centred Initial Teacher Training
Teaching: The Benefits of On-The-Job-Training
Philip Friend has been mentoring ITTs and NQTs in a GSA school for 10 years. He is currently a teacher of Mathematics and Food & Nutrition at St Catherine’s School, Bramley.
Guiding trainee teachers is highly rewarding. I’ve been mentoring Initial Teacher Trainees (ITTs) and Newly Qualified Teachers (NQTs) as part of my role in a Girls’ Schools Association school for 10 years and been proud to see many of them move on to roles of responsibility, such as being Heads of Department or members of Senior Management. There are so many opportunities in schools – both GSA and otherwise – for career development.
Training “on the job”, with the support of mentors and other colleagues, is, I believe, the best way for a trainee to make the most effective progress.
Find out more
National Maths & Physics SCITT www.nmapscitt.org.uk
National Modern Languages SCITT www.nationalmodernlanguages.com
Teacher training in all independent schools www.iscteachertraining.co.uk