Volunteers & Placements

Sometimes we offer training placements and work experience to students who are looking to find a career in education.  Other times we allow volunteers to gain experience and help us in our work here at school.  The students and volunteers bring their own energy, enthusiasms, knowledge and experience, so we believe that having students/ volunteers in the school greatly broadens our pupils' overall experience and gives them an opportunity to help others learn and grow.

Risk assessments are carried out on these persons and appropriate support, training, supervision and management is given.  For adult placements a DBS check is always undertaken.  Photo ID is checked at the office and a security badge is provided.  We work with a range of training providers for these placements, from universities, colleges, schools, businesses, charities and individuals.  Volunteers and students are expected to meet the same standards and policies as staff whilst working with us.  Any failure to meet these expectations may be reported to the placement provider and/ or the placement offer withdrawn.

If you are interested in a placement at our school, please contact the school office and we will be happy to discuss relevant options.  Please note however, that we reserve the right to refuse or even cancel placements where it is felt that we can not offer what you need or where we feel it would be inappropriate to allow such a placement to proceed.

Formal Training Qualifications & Apprenticeships

If you are looking to obtain a specific qualification you must find a training provider who offers this.  We are not a teacher training school - which means that we do not offer 'on-the-job' train-to-teach or graduate training programme roles.  We would only be able to offer you a fixed term placement via your provider as part of the course that you are booked on with them for formal teacher training.

Where an apprenticeship scheme is offered by the school this will be specifically advertised via our staff vacancies listing.  We do not accept general requests for apprenticeship positions in school.

Governors

You might wish to volunteer to take a place on the governing board when a vacancy becomes available.  Find out more about the important role governors and the board have in the life of the school here:

Vetting and Checks on Volunteers and Trainees

Trainees on placement with the school will have a clear DBS check carried out by their training provider which is checked by the office against their ID before allowing the placement to commence (unless the placement is a child on school work experience).  Volunteers are checked by the school via the disclosure and barring service (DBS) and this check is carried out every three years.  No volunteer or trainee is given unsupervised access to pupils with out first having a clear DBS and specific instruction given.