Become a Lead Cardiff Partnership School

Make a difference to the development of future teachers in Wales and join the Cardiff Partnership for Initial Teacher Education as a Lead Partnership School/Alliance.

What is a Lead Partnership School/Alliance?
Lead Partnership Schools/Alliances are where groups of 30 student teachers will experience school-led training to develop excellent pedagogical practice. Clusters of ‘Clinical Practice Schools’ will be linked to each Lead Partnership School/Alliance, enabling each student teacher to undertake their clinical practice – a new form of school experience - in both types of school. There will be 15 student teachers placed in each Lead Partnership School/Alliance whilst the other 15 are distributed between Clinical Practice Schools for Clinical Practice 1 (CP1), swapping over for Clinical Practice 2 (CP2).


Benefits of becoming a Lead Partnership School/Alliance

  • Have a significant influence on the development of future teachers in Wales;
  • Receive £45,000 for providing 15 days of school-led training for 30 student teachers;
  • Collaborate with one of Wales’ leading providers of ITE, as well as with two Russell group universities: University of Oxford and Cardiff University on classroom-based research;
  • Work with a dynamic network of other Lead Partnership Schools/Alliances;
  • Receive free Master’s accreditation for Lead Partnership School/Alliance mentor training;
  • Gain privileged access to latest research findings and accredited CPD from the three universities;
  • Have free access to Cardiff Met’s library for your school’s Research Champion and free training on how to explore online research databases;
  • Receive expert support for publishing action research studies.

Requirements of Lead Partnership Schools/Alliances

  • Provide 15 school-led training days for 30 student teachers;
  • Provide clinical practice placements - within the Lead Partnership School or across the Lead Partnership Alliance - for 15 of the 30 student teachers during CP1 (52 days) and the other 15 for CP2 (53 days);
  • Nominate an initial Teacher Education Co-ordinator to oversee school-led training and clinical practice;
  • Nominate a Research Champion to act as a contact point for research collaboration with the three universities;
  • Contribute to the joint planning of ITE programmes;
  • Commit to joint accountability and quality assurance;
  • Make a three-year commitment to the Cardiff Partnership for ITE from date of selection.

Criteria to Become a Lead Partnership School/Alliance

The criteria for Lead Partnership Schools and Alliances are:

  • Track record of commitment to initial teacher education and high-quality provision
  • Proven record of high-quality support for student teachers
  • Appropriate Estyn outcomes
  • Strengths and capacity to drive improvement, to support others to improve, and to establish ITE as a core responsibility
  • A commitment to contribute to school-based research
  • Offers a curriculum that will provide experiences for student teachers to teach across the six Areas of Learning and Experiences within the Curriculum for Wales
  • Offers a curriculum that will provide experiences for student teachers to teach their chosen specialist subject up to GCSE at a minimum (for Secondary ITE programmes)
  • Sign up to the Cardiff Partnership for ITE Memorandum of Understanding (MoU)

A combination of the above criteria will inform the decisions of a selection panel comprising Cardiff Met ITE leadership and representatives from regional consortia. We aim to construct a community of Lead Partnership Schools/Alliances which demonstrates excellence whilst representing regional diversity in school type, language and location.


Apply Online



Any further enquiries should be sent to:

ccplacements@cardiffmet.ac.uk

Panel meetings of the Cardiff Partnership for ITE Strategic Board to discuss partner school applications take place once per term during the academic year. Therefore, depending on the timing of your application submission date, we will let you know the outcome of the application status as soon as a decision has been made by the panel. 

Please note the information in your application will be shared with the panel members in order to reach a decision.  The panel is made up members of the Cardiff Metropolitan Senior ITE academic staff, Headteacher representatives from Lead partner schools and representatives from the regional consortia.  The majority of the information requested in the application is available in the public domain and all panel members are required to adhere to GDPR regulations in relation to this selection and recruitment process.