Teacher Training in Abingdon & Oxfordshire
At the core of the Abingdon/Oxfordshire hub is St Helen and St Katharine, a vibrant and stimulating school for bright young women with inquiring minds. Great emphasis is placed on encouraging students to believe in themselves and their abilities. The leading independent day school for girls in the Thames Valley, St Helen’s has approximately 730 students and achieves excellent exam results.
Modern languages are a core part of the curriculum at St Helen’s, with Spanish, French, German and Mandarin offered all the way through the School.


Why choose to train for PGCE in Abingdon & Oxfordshire Hub?
From our PGCE course hub in Oxford, we work with a fantastic network of schools and colleges providing our teachers in training a fantastic opportunity to experience a diverse range of teaching placements. Oxford and nearby Abingdon are renowned for their historic and cultural attractions and traditions dating back to the 19th century. From here you have excellent transport links to the rest of the UK and will be working in close proximity to the University of Oxford and Oxford Brookes University.
Abingdon is a historic market town in Oxfordshire where a local community and over seventeen schools and colleges thrive. The partnerships that exist between primary and secondary schools throughout the area create a dynamic education community – student initiatives and teacher training are just a few of many collaborations
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Meet the Abingdon & Oxfordshire Hub Leader - Lisa Probert
Lisa read European Studies and Modern Languages at the University of Bath, before undertaking a PGCE at the University of Reading where she attained a double distinction in theory and practice and won the Barnard Prize for best education student in 1990. Lisa has taught French, German and Spanish for 29 years, both in the UK and abroad.
Her specialisms include linguistics and French Nouvelle Vague cinema and she was formerly Head of MFL at Fitzharrys School in Abingdon. Lisa has also written educational materials and textbooks for Pearson Education, working on Stimmt, Viva and Dynamo. She is the chairperson of the Association for Language Learning Oxfordshire branch.
Hub Partner Schools
When you attend our teacher training course in Oxford you will have the opportunity to work in two of our excellent partner schools in the Oxfordshire and Abingdon area.
Abingdon School, Oxfordshire independent day and boarding school.
A co-educational 11-16 comprehensive school in Didcot.
A British co-educational independent school for day and boarding pupils. It is noted for producing plays in Ancient Greek and its open-air amphitheatre.
A co-educational day and boarding private school in Cheltenham. The school is divided into pre-prep, preparatory and senior schools located on separate but adjacent sites.
A secondary school with academy status located on Shoppenhangers Road, Maidenhead, Berkshire, England. Until 2009 it was an all-boys school, however, the sixth form has since become co-educational.
Information to follow.
Information to follow.
A mixed comprehensive school and Sixth Form serving the Abingdon community and one of three secondary schools within the Abingdon Learning Trust.
Larkmead is a mixed comprehensive school and Sixth Form in Abingdon, and is part of the Vale Academy Trust.
A Church of England academy secondary school in Twyford in Berkshire, England. The school has approximately 1,516 pupils and around 185 teaching staff.
A full-boarding, independent school with Sixth Form, four miles from the city of Oxford, for boys from the age of 13 to 18.
St Bartholomew’s School is a forward thinking, mixed comprehensive school and Sixth Form at the heart of the Newbury community.