What do you actually learn during school-based teacher training?

When you’re thinking about teacher training, it’s easy to picture the visible parts of the job: standing in front of a class, planning lessons, explaining your subject and managing a classroom.

Learning to do those things well involves much more than it might first appear.

During teacher training, you’ll develop your understanding of how pupils learn, how knowledge builds over time and how to recognise when someone hasn’t understood. You’ll learn how to plan and sequence learning, establish effective classroom routines, adapt your teaching and make decisions about how best to teach the subject you know.

On a school-based teacher training programme, much of that learning happens with real classrooms close at hand.

At Mulberry College of Teaching (MCoT), our Beginning Teachers move regularly between training at our East London hub and learning in secondary schools. Something explored at the hub might become the focus of a lesson observation, a conversation with a mentor or an aspect of teaching to practise. An experience in school can then raise a new question to bring back to training.

That relationship between learning, observing, practising and reflecting is an important part of how our Beginning Teachers learn to teach.

So, what does that involve in practice?

How do you learn to understand how pupils learn?

When you first observe a lesson as a Beginning Teacher, it is natural to spend a lot of time watching the teacher.

You notice how they explain something, the questions they ask, how they respond to behaviour and how they move the class from one part of the lesson to another.

As your understanding of teaching develops, you learn to pay closer attention to what is happening for the pupils.

What are they thinking about? What do they already know? What have they understood? Where are misconceptions appearing? Are they simply busy, or is what they are doing helping them learn?

At MCoT, structured lesson observations help Beginning Teachers develop this way of looking at a classroom. Alongside their training in how pupils learn, they begin to understand more about the relationship between the decisions a teacher makes and what happens to pupils’ learning.

Observation becomes less about collecting techniques to copy and more about understanding why particular approaches work, when they might be appropriate and what effect they have on the pupils in front of you.

How do trainee teachers learn to plan effective lessons?

Lesson planning is often one of the first things people associate with learning to teach.

For a new teacher, there can be a temptation to start with the most visible part: what are the pupils going to do?

Our Beginning Teachers learn to start with the learning instead.

What do we want pupils to know or understand? What knowledge are they bringing with them? Is there anything they need to recall? How should new learning be sequenced? What will give us useful evidence that they have understood?

Only then does it make sense to decide which activities will best support that learning.

At MCoT, Beginning Teachers explore these questions through training at the hub and then see them played out in real classrooms. They can observe how experienced teachers plan and sequence learning, discuss those decisions with their mentors and gradually apply the same thinking to their own lessons.

How does teacher training develop your subject knowledge for teaching?

Knowing your subject and knowing how to teach it are not quite the same thing.

An English graduate may know a novel extremely well but still need to think carefully about how to introduce it to a Year 8 class. A Maths graduate may understand a concept confidently but need to learn how to model it clearly, break it into manageable steps and anticipate where pupils might become stuck.

During teacher training, you develop what it means to know your subject as a teacher.

That includes learning how to sequence ideas, choose examples, model your thinking, explain difficult concepts and recognise common misconceptions.

At MCoT, Beginning Teachers learn alongside experienced subject specialists in our partner schools. This gives them opportunities to see how strong subject knowledge is translated into classroom practice and to develop their own subject-specific teaching over time.

How do you learn to establish classroom routines and high expectations?

Some of the things experienced teachers make look effortless have taken considerable thought and practice.

Classroom routines are a good example.

How do pupils know what to do when they enter the room? How are resources distributed without losing valuable learning time? How does a class move from listening to independent work? What happens when the teacher needs everyone’s attention?

Beginning Teachers learn that these routines don’t simply appear. They need to be communicated, taught and reinforced.

At MCoT, our Beginning Teachers explore how routines, responses and relationships contribute to high expectations. They practise giving clear, concise instructions and consider how teacher talk, positioning and non-verbal communication can help create a classroom where pupils know what is expected of them.

The aim is to establish the conditions in which pupils can participate and concentrate on learning.

How do teachers check what pupils have understood?

A class can be busy. Pupils can complete plenty of work. They can appear interested and give correct answers.

None of those things, on their own, tell a teacher everything they need to know about what has been learned.

An important part of teacher training is therefore learning how to gather useful evidence of pupils’ understanding.

Beginning Teachers develop their questioning and assessment practice, learn to listen closely to pupils’ responses and become increasingly skilled at identifying misconceptions.

That information helps a teacher decide what happens next. Do pupils need another example? Does something need explaining differently? Is previous knowledge less secure than expected? Are they ready to move on?

Learning to make those decisions is an important part of becoming a responsive classroom teacher.

How do you learn to adapt teaching for different pupils?

Pupils don’t arrive in a classroom with identical knowledge, experiences or needs.

Beginning Teachers therefore need to understand the barriers that can make learning more difficult and learn how to respond to them while maintaining ambitious expectations for every pupil.

At MCoT, inclusion isn’t treated as a separate part of learning to teach. It runs through planning, observation, classroom practice, mentoring and reflection.

Beginning Teachers learn to think carefully about the pupils in front of them. What might make this learning difficult? What support might help? How can a lesson be adapted so that the whole class is challenged at the level they need and every pupil can participate, enjoy and feel part of the lesson?

This approach reflects MCoT’s wider commitment to inclusive teacher education and to preparing teachers for the richly diverse classrooms and communities of East London.

What role do mentors, feedback and reflection play in teacher training?

Learning to teach involves trying things, looking closely at what happened and deciding what to work on next.

At MCoT, Beginning Teachers work with experienced mentors who help them connect their training with what is happening in the classroom.

Feedback is specific. Rather than trying to improve everything at once, Beginning Teachers can identify a particular aspect of their practice to develop, have opportunities to practise it and then reflect on what has changed.

Our mentors also receive weekly Practice Prompts, so they know what Beginning Teachers are currently exploring through their training and can help them notice, discuss and practise that learning in school.

Something encountered at the hub might therefore become something to look for in an observation. A conversation with a mentor might identify something to practise. An experience in the classroom might then raise a new question to explore back at the hub.

It is a continual process of learning, observing, practising, receiving feedback and reflecting.

How does school-based teacher training work at MCoT?

Mulberry College of Teaching is a school-based Initial Teacher Training provider in East London.

Our Beginning Teachers combine training at the MCoT hub with substantial experience in partner secondary schools, where they learn alongside experienced teachers, mentors and subject specialists.

The parts of the programme are deliberately connected.

Weekly training, school experience, mentoring and opportunities to practise all contribute to the development of a Beginning Teacher’s knowledge and classroom practice. This joined-up approach was recognised in MCoT’s 2026 Ofsted inspection, which found that training sessions, school placements and academic assignments work together effectively to build trainees’ teaching knowledge.

We want Beginning Teachers to understand their subject, their pupils and how learning happens; to have had meaningful opportunities to put that knowledge into practice; and to develop the professional judgement and reflective habits that will continue to support them throughout their careers.

How can I apply for school-based teacher training at MCoT?

Applications are open from 6 October 2026 to train to teach secondary English or secondary Maths with Mulberry College of Teaching from September 2027.

Both are one-year, tuition-fee teacher training programmes leading to Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) with a PGCE.

Based in East London, you’ll combine training at the MCoT hub with substantial experience in local secondary schools and learn from experienced teachers, mentors and subject specialists.

Explore our English and Maths teacher training courses and find out how to apply.

If you have a question about training with MCoT or the application process, contact admissions@mulberrycollegeofteaching.org.