Headteacher/ Senior Leader (Secondary SEND) confirmation of suitability for AO

Note from LSJS:

Accredited ITT providers are required to get written confirmation from the Headteacher of the applicant’s most recent employing school (or an alternative senior member of staff if needed) of the applicant’s suitability for undertaking the Assessment Only route to QTS.

The DfE now allow for ITT providers to use their professional judgement and expertise when choosing which phase is most appropriate for the QTS process for an applicant working in a special school. We are asked to consider the full context of the applicant’s prior and current teaching experience, including the curriculum context, the developmental stage and chronological age of their pupils and the range of subjects they teach, including whether they have a specialist subject.

In many of our Secondary SEND schools candidates teach a main QTS secondary subject (or a small number of subjects, then typically choosing one or two for their AO QTS route), teach GCSE content to some of the older pupils, and have mainstream experience (whether they taught in a mainstream school earlier in their career or undertook/ will be undertaking a short mainstream placement prior to the AO) in a mainstream secondary school. Such a candidate would be best placed to be assessed by us as a teacher of Secondary i.e. to get Secondary AO QTS 11-16 in their subject(s).

The DfE acknowledge that there may be circumstances where the Primary AO route is more appropriate. This would typically be for an applicant whose experience is within a specialist school for pupils aged 11 to 16 but who is teaching multiple subjects across an adapted primary-level curriculum, and whose mainstream experience (whether they taught in a mainstream school earlier in their career or undertook/ will be undertaking a short mainstream placement prior to the AO) was/ will be in a mainstream primary school. For such candidates, although they are teaching pupils 11-16, the candidate would likely be best placed to be assessed by us as a teacher of Primary i.e. to get Primary QTS. (Please note that this would involve us assessing them across an adapted range of primary subjects eg We might see them teach English, Maths and Science and they might show us some other subjects like D&T and Humanities via the three internal observations that they send us before the process and/or in their evidence file.)

With the above in mind, please select and complete the relevant letter overleaf. (If you are unsure as to which route would be most appropriate, please first contact our AO Programme Manager Galia on galia.segal@lsjs.ac.uk to discuss this.)