What is Fellowship?

Fellowship is the highest grade of membership at the Chartered College of Teaching, and is awarded to teachers, leaders and educationalists who have made a significant contribution to the teaching profession. It is a formal recognition of the achievements, skills and expertise held by committed teaching professionals. Fellowship also gives individuals an opportunity to work with the Chartered College of Teaching to support career development and strengthen the teaching profession. Fellowship also bolsters our commitment to ensure that our profession is aware of and acts in accordance with the Framework for Ethical Leadership in Education.

How can I become a Fellow?

Firstly, you need to meet our eligibility criteria. These are:

•   You have taught in a teacher or leadership position employed by a school (0-19 setting) for 10 years

•   You have made a significant contribution to the teaching profession and are able to demonstrate throughout your teaching career that you:

○   critically evaluate and reflect on your own practice

○   are committed to engaging in relevant, career-long professional learning

○   expressed collegiality by supporting, and learning from others

○   adhered to high standards of professionalism

○   engaged critically with research and evidence

You don’t need to be a currently practicing teacher or leader, and we welcome applications from teachers and leaders who are no longer classroom-based too.

If you meet our eligibility criteria, someone will need to nominate you for Fellowship, using the online form. This is very quick and easy to do, and your nominator does not need to be a member of the Chartered College of Teaching, although they do need to also have at least 10 years of teaching/leadership experience. 

Once nominated, potential Fellows will need to fill in our application form on the Submittable platform, which then goes through a robust assessment and moderation process. 

You will also need to request a reference from someone who knows you in a professional capacity. This needs to be a different person to your nominator. The referee does not need to be a member of the Chartered College of Teaching though. Unfortunately we cannot process and assess any applications without the reference.

What does the Fellowship application form contain?

The Fellowship application form has a space for you to request a reference, and then two parts which are written responses. The first is a cover letter, and the second are three short responses to professional behaviour prompts.

The cover letter asks for you to share aspects of your work that you are really proud of. You’ll tell us why you want to be a Fellow, and describe some of your career highlights and achievements. You’ll also describe what you can bring to Fellowship, and how you can help us to empower a knowledgeable and respected teaching profession.

For the professional behaviours, you will have the opportunity to go into greater detail about three areas of your practice, from a list of five areas. These are:

1. Exhibit collegiality by supporting, and learning from, others (includes sharing practice with colleagues to support their learning and contributing to knowledge and practice within the profession)

2. Demonstrate high standards of professionalism

3. Critically evaluate and reflect on their own practice

4. Are committed to engaging in relevant, career-long professional learning

5. Engage critically with research and evidence (includes identifying how research, evidence and expert input has influenced their practice, values and beliefs)

In your application form you must choose three of these Professional Behaviours to expand upon and evidence. One must be chosen from professional behaviour 1 or professional behaviour 2. 

Application Form Hints and Tips

I have been lucky enough to read many fellowship applications. Although they’re all different, there are some things that I see regularly in strong applications. I strongly suggest reading these hints and tips before filling in your Fellowship application form:

•   Before you start, make sure that you read the Fellowship application guidance really carefully. It has lots more detail about the eligibility criteria, the application process and also includes the assessment criteria that we’ll be looking for in your application. Check your application against these criteria before you submit.

•   Make sure that you explain why you want to be a Fellow and what you’ll do to help and support the Chartered College of Teaching in your first year of Fellowship within your cover letter. 

•   Draw out your career achievements in your cover letter, and shout about the things that you are really proud of. These really help us to see how you have made a significant contribution to the teaching profession.

•   In your professional behaviours, give really clear examples of what you’ve done, evidencing how your actions evidence how you meet the professional behaviour. For example, if you exhibit collegiality by sharing practice with colleagues, describe an actual example of that in practice. So instead of saying “I support colleagues in developing their teaching practice” instead say “I designed and ran three sessions of internal CPD on retrieval practice for my department/key stage team last term, looking at how we could use these techniques in our teaching. I allowed the teachers to observe me trialling the techniques in my own teaching and modelled reflecting on the outcomes. I also worked with the other teachers in planning and team teaching lessons utilising these techniques.”. Basically, tell us what you actually did, not what you generally do. Be really specific.

If you have any further questions about Fellowship, please contact us on hello@chartered.college.

FAQs