Abstract

International Qualified Teacher Status (iQTS) is a new international teaching qualification first piloted from September 2022 and now in its third year. Graduates holding iQTS are recognised by the Department for Education (DfE) as equivalent to those with qualified teacher status (QTS) in England. Trainees remain in their overseas schools, and various models of provision are accredited and compliant with the core content framework (CCF), which will be replaced by the initial teacher training and early career framework (ITTECF) from September 2025.

Although all Initial Teacher Training programmes require trainee teachers to develop subject knowledge over the course of an academic year, on an international independent distance learning (IDL) programme, this is rendered more challenging by working remotely and often asynchronously across international time zones.

Traditional part campus, part school-based partnership models for teacher formation rely on proximal teaching. The challenge for IDL programmes is to ensure the equivalent development of subject-specific pedagogical content knowledge to that resulting from face-to-face campus teaching. How can a model of subject specialist teaching be successfully implemented into an international distance learning PGCE with iQTS for secondary trainees?

This presentation will share the model of bespoke professional development facilitation being refined and co-ordinated for secondary subject specialists over rolling cohorts of a PGCE with iQTS programme. It will demonstrate how subject-specific input is designed to meet the needs of distance learning trainee teachers following an array of secondary subject pathways. The model and research methodology form part of an ongoing professional doctorate portfolio and thesis