Our lead school
for English

Cardinal Heenan is a well-established, thriving Catholic school with a reputation for the very highest standards, outstanding students and exceptional staff. We instil a love of learning inspired by high quality teaching which develops individual strengths and talents. We encourage and celebrate creativity, original thinking, imagination, effort and achievement. Our school is a happy school built on positive relationships and three principles of Be Kind, Try Your Best and Follow the Rules.

The school places a great deal of emphasis on fulfilling its Catholic mission to create a community built on faith and trust and in providing extensive individual support to students to enable them to achieve their full potential – “inspiring excellence by encouraging every individual to be the person that God calls us to be”. The mission and ethos permeate all elements of school life. The school was inspected by Catholic Schools Inspectorate in 2025. Inspectors reviewed and evaluated the Catholic life and mission of the school, religious education and collective worship. The school was judged to be ‘Outstanding’ in providing Catholic Education.

Our drive on improving teaching and learning has never faltered and we continue to maintain a whole school CPD focus on Cognitive Science to help to ensure that our children are given every possible advantage in every lesson to allow them to access new learning in a positive way and to secure a deep understanding of the syllabus. Our Teaching and Learning team lead CPD sessions designed to support colleagues in their delivery and to encourage teachers to continually develop their own understanding of how children learn and how we can maximise our impact in the classrooms.

As a trainee of English, this is where you will spend the first six weeks of your PGCE course, where you will have the opportunity to observe and learn from experts in the classroom delivering your subject, as well as spending time with the other subject trainees learning all about the pedagogy behind teaching your subject, how to plan lessons, what makes an excellent lesson as well as at the same time developing your subject knowledge. As the six-weeks Lead School Experience progresses, you will have the opportunity to teach lessons, this is a personalised journey, so for some, that may happen sooner, as we can tailor the course to suit your previous experience and confidence at this stage.

This course will give you the support to gain confidence in teaching your subject and the necessary knowledge and skills to become one of the next generations of expert teachers.

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Catherine Feasey: English Subject

Tutor Email- leedsscitt@leedstrinity.ac.uk