Leeds based Luminate Education Group creates Teacher Development Centre in the city to tackle recruitment shortages

The Luminate Education Group - which has Leeds City College, Leeds Conservatoire and the White Rose Academies Trust as its members - has a teacher training offer, based at the new Teacher Development Centre in the centre of Leeds, which offers non-traditional routes into the teaching profession.

The group's message is 'no matter your academic or current career starting point, they are keen to assist the teacher in you to succeed'.

Its teacher training offer includes apprenticeships and top up degree courses and non-traditional routes into a teaching career, leading to Qualified Teacher Status.

Luminate also wants to attract local people considering a change in career or trying to decide what to do after their studies and wanting to make a positive difference to the city.

It comes as each year more teachers leave the teaching profession than enter it and this pressure on teacher recruitment is set to continue, with student numbers projected to rise by seven per cent by 2026.

City Region is not only sustained during these challenging times of a national decline in teacher population but broadened in terms of offering a suite of unique teacher training opportunities tailored for a previously uncatered-for audience across the city.

Nicola Widnall, vice principal at Luminate Education Group said: “We are very clear in our ambition to try and plug the teacher gap for our young people, but also to offer a route into the profession for people who may not have considered teaching before or who are rethinking their next steps professionally, particularly in the aftermath of recent months.

"We are keen to diversify not only our workforce to reflect more accurately the communities which we are so proud to serve, but also to offer new and different ways into a career which makes a real difference to the young people in our charge, whilst offering attractive entry salaries along with a myriad of other staff benefits.”

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