The School of Education and Communities is one of London's leading centres for teacher training, offering highly successful programmes for Primary, Secondary and Post-Compulsory levels. We are the only School of Education in the country to meet the Equality and Diversity and Disability benchmark (source: The Guardian). We have a reputation for excellence in preparing teachers to educate young people in the multi-ethnic and multilingual culture of urban schools and are one of the UK's leading providers of initial teacher training for students from minority ethnic backgrounds. We are also one of the leading universities for recruiting men to train to teach at both primary and secondary levels. Following the most recent Ofsted inspection of our Teacher Training programmes in December 2012, our provision was judged to be Good. We take a broad view of partnership, and as a university are working hard to ensure that we transcend the idea of equating partnership with placement.

This work is part of a larger picture where UEL has been the initiator of significant partnership activity among universities and colleges within the Thames Gateway with the aim of ensuring the prominence of the higher-level skills agenda within the context of a growing population and significant local job creation. Within our sector, we are active members of the London Providers Group for ITT and have been instrumental in the development of the mentor framework and the assessment grade criteria.

UEL Initial Teacher Education has a strong and effective commitment to inclusion and to schools in east London and the region, building on and bolstered by an exceptionally strong, cohesive and developing partnership. Through this partnership, it offers high-quality teacher training, with strong subject knowledge development in all subjects backed up by investment in subject-specific facilities and resources.