Changes to School Direct from 2013

Those interested in a career in primary or secondary teaching may be interested to know that the School Direct programme has been expanded for the academic year 2013/14 and will then offer two types of training places:

1) The School Direct Training Programme, which is open to all graduates and funded by tuition fees
paid by the trainee, who may receive a bursary from the Teaching Agency (TA).

2) The School Direct Training Programme (salaried), which is an employment-based route into
teaching for high quality graduates with three or more years’ career experience. The trainee is
employed as an unqualified teacher by a school and will replace the Graduate Teacher Programme (GTP) which will close.

All School Direct places will lead to qualified teacher status (QTS). Schools will decide whether they wish the provider to award a postgraduate certificate in education (PGCE)from a higher education institution or School Centred Initial Teacher Training Institution (SCITT).

For recruitment to the academic year 2013/14 the TA will manage a central application system, providing a single point of application for all candidates and on which all School Direct places will be listed. Further details will be made available in due course.

Please note however that places for the 2012-13 School Direct programme will be made direct to schools.  For more details see the Teaching Agency website.

Source: Teaching Agency announcement via AGCAS

Employers Try New Assessment Tactics

Following a recent post on the dissatisfaction of applicants with their experience of psychometric testing, it was interesting to read in "Graduate Recruiter" that Barclays Capital have moved towards using an online business simulation exercise during their half day assessment centre programme.

The exercise aims to test candidates' responses to realistic work situations using an interactive tool which feeds them information from a variety of sources, rather in the manner of the old 'in-tray' type exercise, complete with deadlines, distractions and last minute changes.

Meanwhile GCHQ have had the innovative idea of asking potential applicants to crack a code on an anonymous website and publicising the event on blogs, twitter, youtube and other social media.  Those who successfully cracked the code without hacking the site illegally could access details of the code source as well as current employment opportunities with GCHQ.

Apparently this campaign attracted 94 million hits, a record for a recruitment website. However, only 236 people succeeded in cracking the code. Presumably at least some of them are by now working for GCHQ.

FAQ: Where can I get advice on which postgraduate course to study?

A good starting point is the Graduate Prospects website, which has a whole section on postgraduate study at prospects.ac.uk/postgraduate_study.htm  As well as general information about key things to consider and funding information, you can find detailed information on specific University Departments and a search facility so that you can look for postgraduate courses in the UK that may interest you.

At the University of Cumbria, campus libraries contain copies of postgraduate prospectuses sent to us by many Universities as well as hard copies of the Prospects Postgraduate Directory, Prospects Postgraduate Funding Guide and Prospects Postgrad UK (quarterly magazine).  Many public lending libraries will also hold copies of these publications.

You may also find some more specialised information about specific career or study areas.  For example, if you are looking for postgraduate teacher training courses www.gttr.ac.uk has full details about how to apply and an online application system.  Or if you are interested in Psychology courses, you can find details about the various options at www.bps.org.uk   These are just two examples.

It's important to consider your reasons for wanting to do postgraduate study and the relative importance of your eventual career choice.  A postgraduate course is by no means a ticket to a guaranteed job, so ask course tutors carefully about the destinations of previous students if career outcomes are important to you.

If you are looking at doing a postgraduate qualification by research rather than a taught degree, you will need to take the initiative in structuring and organising the research and choosing a supportive research tutor you feel you can work with can become almost as important as the choice of research topic.  There are also an increasing number of postgraduate courses taught by distance learning.

University of Cumbria students and graduates who want to discuss their postgraduate options in depth can feel free to contact us  by email

Health Job Shortages

Although entry to many health sector jobs has become more difficult over the past few years, there are still areas where there are some shortages.  A listing produced recently suggested the following:

◦       Hospital Consultants in: neurophysiology; emergency medicine; genito-urinary medicine; haematology; neurology; occupational medicine; forensic psychiatry; general psychiatry; learning disabilities psychiatry; old age psychiatry.

◦       Hospital Doctors specialising in: anaesthetics; paediatrics; intensive care medicine; general internal medicine (acute); emergency medicine; general surgery; obstetrics and gynaecology; trauma and orthopaedic surgery.

◦       Nurses specialising in: operating theatres; neonatal intensive care.

◦       Radiographers.

◦       Nuclear medicine technologist; radiotherapy technologist.

◦       Cardiac physiologist; clinical neurophysiologist; clinical vascular scientist; respiratory physiologist; sleep physiologist.

Meanwhile a drive to recruit 2,400 more health visitors by 2015 is also underway.

Of course, this does not mean that your local NHS Trust will automatically have vacancies for all these positions!