A toolkit for, and case study exploring, a project that placed teacher staff in industry work placements to accrue experience, then cascaded their experiences to colleagues, and ultimately endeavoured to improved students' learning experiences.
Sending staff into the workplace was seen as an important step in the creation and development of an ‘exchange relationship’ between employers and education providers. Once partners were engaged, they were encouraged to make their own contacts in industry, leading to a wide range of placements in terms of sector and duraction. The network’s active partners contributed to the toolkit.
Teachers were observed to have improved their embedding of employability and industry standards within the curriculum, their use of technology to enhance learning, their promotion of active learning in the classroom, and their students' engagement with the lesson being observed. It was identified that placements need to be planned a long time in advance.
OTLA