Gaining school experience – White Rose Alliance

There is no requirement for applicants for teacher training to have completed school experience before applying or starting a teacher training course.

The White Rose Alliance however recommend applicants try to obtain some recent school experience if at all possible. Being in the school environment & seeing different teaching styles & how your subject is taught, will help you decide if teaching is the right career for you. It will also give you first-hand experience to refer to at interview & be valuable experience to feed into your development during your course.

Gaining school experience at King James´s School

King James´s School has experience in all departments of hosting visitors who are considering teaching as a career. As we receive a lot of experience visit requests, visits are restricted to one day in the first instance. King James´s School is the lead school for the White Rose Alliance & as such, experience visits are restricted to those who are potentially considering applying to White Rose Alliance for training & fulfil the following criteria. Applicants for experience visits:

must not already have applied for, or accepted, a place for teacher training with another provider
must be interested in training to teach a subject in which the White Rose Alliance runs a course (which still has places available) & have appropriate qualifications
should have an Honours degree (2:2 or above or equivalents) or be studying for an Honours degree, either in the subject they are considering applying to train to teach in, or it must have significant elements of the subject they are applying to train to teach in + an A Level in the subject
must have GCSE Maths & English Grades A*-C or equivalents
if visiting Languages, must be considering teaching languages with French as their main language & be able to offer German or Spanish as their second language

Please note that we will not be able to arrange experience visits for subjects where the White Rose Alliance course is full & has been closed.

All school experience visits commence with an induction to the school, safeguarding & training with the White Rose Alliance. Visitors will have an opportunity to observe lessons, meet staff & current trainees informally (dependent on staff/trainee timetables & availability). Our departments always extend a warm welcome to visitors & staff are generous in sharing their knowledge & experience.

Requests for a school experience day at King James´s School should be made via the DfE School Experience Programme.

Thank you for a well organised & interesting school experience day at King James's, I really enjoyed my time at the school

Thank you to the staff at King James's School for all their help & support today. I found the experience day very informative & it was great to observe & experience a wide range of age groups being taught. The day was very beneficial at this stage in my teaching ambitions.

I really enjoyed my day at King James's. The staff were very welcoming & I am grateful for the time that they shared with me. I learned valuable skills/techniques by observing them in class & the time I had with them between lessons allowed me to ask a wide range of questions. In comparison to the other experience days which I have attended, I had much more time with experienced teachers at King James's, which allowed me to understand all aspects of the job rather then just hearing a lot of information about the course. I find this to be much more helpful when considering a career change as I was very interested in finding out what the next 30 years of my careers will be like. My expectations were exceeded, I felt welcomed into the department & came away feeling more determined than ever to become a teacher.