Nursery World - School Direct Early Years

The new School Direct programme is being used by nursery schools to develop the next generation of talent. Hannah Crown reports.

The School Direct programme is a Michael Gove initiative to raise the standards of early years teacher training by allowing schools to train their future intake on the job. It opened to early years providers last September. Critics have raised concerns that this change might lead to a dismantling of expertise within the colleges and universities offering teacher training programmes as fewer candidates apply via these routes.

But training the next batch of new recruits is a huge opportunity, says Jamie Wilson, deputy headteacher of Everton Nursery School and Family Centre. 'The traditional model of teacher training is where you sit in a lecture hall and listen. For me that is a bit old-fashioned. This is very much based on current practice from effective teachers with a class of 30 children.

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