The Grand Union Training Partnership is a school-centred initial teacher training (SCITT) consortium centred on four 11-18 comprehensive schools situated in villages and small towns West of Northampton. As well as these four partnership schools the scheme has close ties with a further four Associate Schools, two of which are in Milton Keynes. Most of our recruits come from the Northampton and the Milton Keynes area and the scheme is very conscious of its role in training local people for employment in their home area.

We provide Secondary PGCE courses, validated by The University of Leicester, in Business Studies, English, History, Mathematics, Modern Foreign Languages and Science. We aim to give trainees, whom we refer to as Associate Teachers, as much practical experience of working in the partnership schools as possible. Each Associate Teacher's work and programme of study is supervised by a Mentor who will take a close interest in your development as a subject teacher and colleague. This part of the course is complemented by a general professional studies programme provided in co-operation with The University of Leicester.

Our overall aim is to produce reflective professionals confident in applying for and starting their first jobs as secondary school teachers. Over half of our Associate Teachers take up their first teaching posts in the schemes partnership schools.