Brooke Weston Academy was delighted to welcome His Honour Judge Rupert Mayo into the school to give advice and answer questions from students interested in a career in law.

Judge Mayo, was a barrister for 21 years and took up his present position over eight years ago and he has been Resident Judge at Northampton since 2011.

Judge Mayo had a tour, hosted a Q&A with Year 13 students who have applied to do law or law enforcement and gave advice to Year 11 and 12 students who were thinking about careers in law. He said ‘I wanted to come to Brooke Weston to help students learn and understand about law. It underpins a lot of what we do and you don’t have to be a professional lawyer in order to be involved in law. Nowadays it’s very expensive to go to university and not impressive if you start on one degree and decide to change to another, so the more information students can have before they put their choices down the better.

Over the last 10 years training to become a teacher has been changing. Firstly, the routes available to become a teacher have altered significantly. Traditionally students went to university, completed a degree and went on to do a PGCE programme, (Postgraduate Certificate of Education) which involved placements at different schools. Now that’s changed as more innovative ways to bring teachers into the profession are needed. There are still the traditional routes available however now options such as School Direct are proving to be really successful methods of training, not only for the schools involved, but also for the trainees.

Welcome to the trainee teachers who are just starting their placements at Brooke Weston as part of the School Direct programme. The year-long course combines university study and school experience and successful candidates will be awarded a PGCE qualification next summer.

The trainees, specialising in English, maths, science, French and history, are a mix of recent undergraduates and those who have had jobs in other sectors but who want a career change to teaching.

IT Teacher Ray Chambers has been accredited as a Microsoft Innovative Expert Educator so he will network with other teachers in the area and share best practice.

Microsoft said: ‘MIEs are educators that are using Microsoft tools in the classroom and have learned the fundamentals of some of these tools. This is the first step on a journey of joining a professional learning network of enthusiastic educators who come together to learn, share and grow.’