Laing

The Prince's Teaching Institute (PTI) is an educational charity which raises ambition and challenge in state schools by providing professional development for teachers.

The PTI is a member of the Prince's Charities Foundation and it currently supports English, History, Science, Geography, Maths and Modern Foreign Language teachers. In the 2009/10 academic year alone the PTI reached over 1,800 teachers and over 140,000 pupils from a wide range of secondary schools in England.

The Institute believes that young people's opportunities in life are maximised by having inspiring teachers who espouse high ambition for all, irrespective of background or ability, and who enthuse their pupils through their passion and knowledge of their subject.

John Laing, through the John Laing Charitable Trust has been able to support schools in the Swindon area in two ways. The first is in supporting the PTI to bring their Heads and their teachers in contact with their peers across the country and to work with them to improve the subject provision they give their pupils. The second is to foster a local network of schools that share good practice in areas such as governance, mentoring and links with local employers in the context of Business in the Community's Business Class programme.

The John Laing Charitable Trust is funding a three year programme of support for a cluster of schools in Swindon, including Isambard Community School and Nova Hreod School. An extract from the July 2011 update report detailing the participation of the John Laing supported schools in PTI programmes, can be found by clicking here.

Chris Pope, co-director of The Prince's Teaching Institute said, "We are delighted to forge this innovative agreement with John Laing in partnership with Business in the Community. Many companies have valuable direct engagement with pupils and leadership in schools, but typically the engagement stops short of the heart of the school - interesting teaching and challenging lessons. By choosing to engage with the schools' teachers in their day to day classroom work through the PTI in addition to their work with BITC, the Swindon schools are receiving a comprehensive and holistic programme of support from John Laing that will result in their pupils being better prepared to compete in today's competitive marketplace."

Furtherinformation can be found by following the link below to the Prince's Teaching Institute website

http://www.princes-ti.org.uk/Donors/CaseStudyJohnLaingCharitableTrust/