How Moorside High School strengthened recruitment, retention and staff development with the National Institute of Teaching
Why Moorside chose to partner with the National Institute of Teaching
When Sarah Leadbeater began overseeing teacher training at Moorside High School, she soon noticed that having several providers involved created unnecessary complexity. She shared, ‘It became clear there were opportunities to streamline our approach, and I felt we could benefit from even stronger communication and joined-up support for our staff.’
Moorside’s connection with the national institute began through the PGTA. From the very first interaction, Sarah noticed a clear difference: ‘We were really impressed from the get-go with the level of professionalism.’
For Sarah, the defining factor was our clarity of expectations: ‘The national institute holds their standards, and they keep their standards,’ she shared, contrasting this with previous providers that were ‘too flexible,’ resulting in variable trainee quality.
In fact, our consistency across programmes led Moorside’s entire trust to switch to the national institute for ECT provision.
How the PGTA apprenticeship transformed internal recruitment
Sarah feels that the PGTA is a standout for Moorside and has been her highlight of working with the national institute.
Moorside has been able to use the programme to strategically fill hard-to-recruit subjects, particularly maths and science. Sarah explained: ‘We’ve been able to take two of our current members of staff who were in non-teaching roles and put them in teaching roles in subjects where recruitment is difficult.’
The apprenticeship’s structure makes it particularly powerful: ‘When you start your apprenticeship, you start on day one teaching, so if you already know your school and the systems and the students, it just makes everything a lot easier.’
Perhaps most importantly, the PGTA route has strengthened Moorside’s succession planning: ‘Word of mouth spreads, and I get people coming asking me all the time: what is the potential for moving from the role I do into teaching?’.
This has allowed the school to develop teachers internally, reducing the need for national recruitment, and create a sustainable pipeline of future staff.
How the ECT programme aligns with school priorities
One of the strongest features Sarah highlighted was how well our ECT curriculum aligns with Moorside’s own systems, coaching model, and Continuing Professional Development (CPD) priorities. She emphasised the importance of coherence between what trainees learn and what they experience in school: ‘The coaching model we are adopting at school is the same as the coaching model that the national institute have.’
This alignment helps handle sector-wide challenges around behaviour, attendance, and social media. Sarah explained: ‘Those are the challenges that we face…trying to help our trainee teachers navigate those things and giving them the tools and strategies needed to deal with them.’
Modules such as behaviour and inclusion directly complement live priorities at Moorside. For example, she noted: ‘The ECT’s last module of the year is on inclusion and provision, so it marries with what is going on in school.’ This joined-up approach ensures trainees benefit from both strong external training and consistent reinforcement within the school.
The wider impact on whole-school capacity
A key insight from Sarah is how the partnership uplifts the whole school, not just those on training routes. Because mentors receive high-quality training grounded in coaching and research, those skills spread across the staff body.
She gave the example of a new head of history:
‘He’s mentoring an ECT in his own department now he’s had the mentoring training’
Reducing workload through a streamlined provider
Contrary to common fears about switching providers, Moorside found that consolidating with the national institute reduced workload across the team.
Sarah shared that our communication and responsiveness have been consistently strong:
‘Whenever we’ve needed any support, the communication is really good. If I’m not available, we get a message saying, “leave me a message and I’ll get back to you today”, and people get back to us straight away.’
Similarly, our standards and visiting tutors remove pressure from schools:
‘If there’s ever an issue or concern, the national institute will be very clear on what their expectations are.’ This clarity and partnership, rather than flexibility without structure, has given Moorside confidence in the quality of its training pipeline.
Why more schools are choosing the national institute
Moorside High School’s experience demonstrates the tangible benefits of switching to our ECT programme and investing in the PGTA apprenticeship:
- Clear, consistent standards
- Exceptionally strong communication and responsiveness
- Alignment with school systems and coaching approaches
- A sustainable internal recruitment pipeline
- Stronger capacity across departments
- Reduced workload through coherent provision
As Sarah summarised, ‘It just works really well - it’s a positive relationship that works both ways.’
Learn more about our PGTA and ECT programme.