AN innovative teacher training course has increased the number of trainees threefold after setting up at a Halesowen primary school.

The Hales Valley Teaching School Alliance, based at Lutley Primary School, offers graduates the chance to spend 80 per cent of their post grad training course in the classroom.

Conventional PGCE courses send students on placements for just 20 per cent of the year-long course.

But the School Direct route, run in conjunction with Birmingham University, gives them much more classroom experience.

Lutley’s assistant headteacher Rebecca Keen said the course had achieved a 100 per cent success rate for students finding teaching posts.

She said: “We are finding that School Direct graduates are coming out with higher abilities to teach, because so much of their time is classroom based.”

Five students were offered places in the first year based at Lutley, 10 students are currently on the course and 14 will be taken on to start in September.

Seven places have been taken already and Mrs Keen said applicants ranged from recent graduates to those looking for a career change and classroom assistants wanting advancement.

Applicants must have at least a 2:2 degree, GCSEs in English, maths and science and have a minimum week’s experience in a classroom to ensure they feel suited to teaching, which Mrs Keen can help provide.

Lutley is the only school in the Dudley to be a teaching school and students have placements there and at 18 primaries across the borough in both key stages.

For more details, contact Mrs Keen on 01384 818220.