BA (Hons) / BSc (Hons) Secondary Education with QTS*
A Guide to Starting at Edge Hill University
YOU WILL ALSO NEED TO REFER TO THE ADDITIONAL
SUBJECT SPECIALISM APPENDIX BOOKLET
PRE-PROGRAMME INFORMATION
FOR THOSE TRAINEES JOINING YEAR2 (LEVEL 5)
2017 Entry
(* Indicates our recommendation for QTS at the end of your programme)
CONTENTS
PageWelcome / 3
Section One: Key Information / 4
- Checklist
- University term dates 2017/18
- Key staff contact details
- First Week 2017
- Programme Introduction
- Attendance
- Becoming a reflective practitioner
- Observations prior to starting programme
Section Two: Pre-programme tasks / 16
Appendices
Appendix a: Unseen Children Brief Summary
Appendix b: Unseen Children Extended Summary
Appendix c: Lesson Observation Notes
Appendix d: ITT Professional Code of Conduct / Note: Appendices e and f are applicable for AY 2016/17. These are provided for illustrative information only as they are subject to annual review by the Faculty of Education
Appendix e: Travel Policy AY 2016/17
Appendix f: Regional Opportunity Allocation
Policy AY 2016/17
Appendix g: Teachers’ Standards / An overview of the Teachers’ Standards
Welcome to Edge Hill UNIVERSITY
Welcome to Edge Hill University and in particular to the Faculty of Education. You will shortly be undertaking a two year BA Honours or BSc Honours degree that will follow the teaching standards laid out in Teachers’ Standards (Revised 2013). Successful completion of the programme will lead to a recommendation for Qualified Teacher Status and a career in teaching that we hope you will find long and rewarding. Our aim is to ensure you develop your subject knowledge along with the necessary professional attributes and skills to become an effective, innovative and outstanding secondary teacher, whilst at the same time fulfilling your potential in your undergraduate studies.
The purpose of this booklet is to help you to get your Edge Hill University career off to a flying start and so it is very important that you read this booklet carefully and complete all the administrative tasks needed to secure your place.
It is important that you make the most of all observational opportunities prior to commencing the programme and therefore I draw your attention to Section One – Part 8: Observations prior to starting programme.
It is important that you note carefully the dates in the calendar for the forthcoming academic year (see Section One – Part 2: University term dates 2017/18 on page 6) so that any holidays you arrange do not conflict with your university commitments. You should also read and understand the information on school experience placements (see pages 9, 10 and 11 and Appendices d, and f).
Key information about your chosen specialist subject is provided in a separate appendix so please ensure that you read and act on this.
You should also read an accompanying The Student Handbook 2017/18, which includes information about our support services including finance, welfare and accommodation. Don't forget that you can also keep up to date with what is going on at Edge Hill University via our website (
However, please do not hesitate to contact us if you are unsure what to do or need any further advice about your course. A list of key staff and important contact details is provided on page 7.
I very much look forward to meeting you in September.
Regards,
Ghada Nakhla
Mathematics
Subject Course Leader
Section One:
Key Information
- Checklist
Task /
Further action required
/ Date completed1 / Read this Booklet / Contact University if you have questions (contact details on page 6).
2 / Ensure University have current contact details / Keep Admissions Office informed of any changes. Tel 01695 650950.
3 / Make a note dates / Ensure that family members also know key dates
4 / Inform University of Examination results / Written confirmation of results sent to Admissions Office as soon as received.
5 / Edge Hill University Maths, English and Science equivalency test required (for applicants not holding GCSE Maths, Science & English) / Contact the University to arrange time for test(s). Tel: 01695 584618.
6 / Pass Professional Skills Tests in Literacy and Numeracy / Please ensure you keep your Course Leader (see page 7 for Contact Details) about your progress and notify when you pass (also let them know of any failed attempts so advice and support can be offered)
7 / Registration documentation / Please bring your UK Birth Certificate and two copies of your LA notification as requested by Admissions.
8 / Pre-Course Tasks / Complete all pre-programme tasks (pages 21 and 22) before Monday 18th September 2017. Also ensure you have completed your specialist subject pre-course tasks in the separate subject specialist appendix.
9 / Arrive for Welcome Week full timetable of induction into University life and academic study
Start: Monday 18th September 2017 at 10.00am in M40 (Main Building, Top Floor)
In the unlikely event that you do not receive further details about Welcome Week you should report to the Information Desk in the Faculty of Education Building at 9.30am on Monday 18th September
- UNIVERSITY TERM AND SCHOOL EXPERIENCE DATES+
BA (Hons) / BSc (Hons) Secondary Education with QTS*
Academic Year 2017/18
Year 2 (Level 5)
Programme commences / Monday 18th September 2017End of Autumn Term / Friday 15th December 2017
Spring Term commences / Wednesday 3rd January 2018
End of Spring Term / Friday 30th March 2018
Summer Term commences / Monday 16th April 2018
End of Summer Term / Friday 29th June 2018
Professional Practice
Professional Practice 1b (Developmental placement): Monday 23rd April to Friday 29th June 2018 [placement start and end dates are notional]
As you are a student studying on an Initial Teacher Training programme, the delivery of the academic content of your programme and timing of professional practice is designed to replicate the requirements of teachers in practice and runs over a typical school year, rather than a University academic year. The start and end dates of the professional practice will vary depending on the school you are allocated to for your professional practice. On occasions, placements may need to be changed or the start of placements may be delayed at short notice due to external factors such as availability of placements or changes in school settings which provide professional practice opportunities.You therefore need to ensure that you are available until the end of July 2018 including any accommodation requirements to complete the placement phase of your training. This is made clear in University and Faculty of Education documentation.
PLEASE NOTE THAT YOU SHOULD NOT BOOK ANY HOLIDAYS DURING UNIVERSITY TERM TIME OR WHILE ON SCHOOL PLACEMENT
(+ Correct as at May 2017)
3.KEY STAFF CONTACT DETAILS
David Wooff / Year 2 Leader / 01695 657183 /Ghada Nakhla / Mathematics Course Leader / 01695 650921 /
Dr Phil Rigby / Head of Secondary and Further Education / 01695 584824 /
Administration co-ordination and support / 01695 584877 /
Admissions Team / 01695 650950 /
Personal Tutors
Trainees will have a Personal Tutor throughout the programme. Your Personal Tutor will support your academic and professional development and will meet with you several times during each academic year. Trainees will have your specialist subject Course Leader as a Personal Tutor. Names and contacts are listed above.
4.Welcome Week 2017: Induction to Study and University
To support your induction to Edge Hill University and the Secondary Undergraduate Programme, there will be a Welcome Week academic programme allowing you to meet and work with staff and colleagues and gain an overview of the programme.
A full timetable for this week will be provided upon arrival and registration at Edge Hill University. It is essential that you attend all sessions during this week as it is central to your ability to make a smooth transition into the expectations of academic and professional life at Edge Hill.
Welcome Week takes place week commencing Monday 18th September 2017.
You will be provided with a detailed programme of events for Welcome Week nearer the time, including registration.
You will also receive a Programme Handbook during this induction phase together with a timetable for the rest of the academic year.
- PROGRAMME INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the BA (Hons) / BSc (Hons) Secondary Education with QTS* programme. The Secondary Undergraduate Programme will be rewarding and stimulating. We aim to develop innovative, creative and outstanding teachers whose committed professionalism inspires the pupils in their care.
Trainees on the programme follow one of the subject specialisms:
English
Mathematics
Religious Education
Science (Biology, Chemistry, Physics)
This pre-course guide is designed to address some of the key questions that arise for trainees preparing to undertake the Secondary Undergraduate programme at Edge Hill University. It also provides information about key activities to be undertaken in supporting your preparation before the commencement of the programme and suggests key texts and resources to refer to.
The Secondary Undergraduate programme is unique and has been specifically designed to provide you, as a trainee teacher, with opportunities to develop your subject specialism, whilst gaining a recommendation for Qualified Teacher Status.
Edge Hill University has been at the forefront of Teacher Education for more than 100 years and enjoys a national reputation as one of the largest quality providers of Teacher-Training in England.
As well as the high expectations Edge Hill has of you, there are also national standards and requirements for ITT which can be downloaded from the Department for Education website:
Overview
You will demonstrate your achievement of the Teachers’ Standards in a variety of ways (more detail will be provided during the induction period and throughout the programme).
Through the Edge Hill University based programme which is organised as follows;
- Professional Practice:
Professional practice is an integral part of all programmes of Initial Teacher Training at Edge Hill University and is embedded into each year of the Secondary Undergraduate programme. It is designed to provide you with a range of experiences across the age range for which you are training. During your placements you will be supported, guided and assessed by trained mentors, teachers and Edge Hill tutors.
You will apply knowledge, understanding, skills and abilities within a range of school settings.
The pattern of Placement Experience is:
- An initial placement in a secondary school/setting
- A developmental placement in a secondary school/setting
- A synoptic placement in a different secondary school/setting.
As a Trainee Teacher, you are expected to behave in a professional manner at all times, at Edge Hill and during school- based training.
This involves;
- regular attendance,
- excellent punctuality,
- demonstrating high standards of behaviour both in school and at Edge Hill,
- completing work satisfactorily to set deadlines,
- demonstrating commitment to the achievement of the highest standards of performance, in both Edge Hill University and school-based work.
All your placements are organised by the Partnership team in the Faculty of Education. You will also be given detailed briefings at the commencement of, and during, your programme.
- Personal and Professional Conduct:
This strand has several elements. The first is concerned with your own development as an independent learner within the context of Higher Education. The current educational context is considered as well as teaching and learning strategies and the needs of learners. The second element centres on professional aspects within teaching: a range of current generic education issues and policies such as Behaviour Management, equal opportunities, Special Educational Needs and Disabilities, the National Strategy at Key Stage 3 and the pre-vocational curriculum. Within your curriculum area as well as during your time on placement you will have further opportunities to consider how such issues impact upon the profession and today’s education system and to develop your understanding of them. The third element focuses on teachers’ legal responsibilities, statutory requirements and on cross-curricular issues – particularly professional conduct and relationships with children, parents and other agencies.
- Teaching Skills:
This strand, by its very nature is interlinked with Personal and Professional Conduct but has a much more subject based focus. It considers the elements of the National Standards concerned with subject specialist teaching in Secondary schools. These include, planning, teaching and learning, classroom management, inclusion, monitoring, assessment and target setting.
- Subject Knowledge:
This will give you the opportunity to develop your specialist subject to honours degree level, thus enabling you to teach in the Secondary age phase range.
Timetable
You will receive full details of your timetable for the Autumn Term during Welcome Week.
The exact details of timetabling arrangements will be known by early September 2017.
Attendance and Holidays during Semesters
Full attendance is a requirement of the programme. Failure to meet this requirement can impact on your progression to Year 3. In addition, your placement may be delayed if it is considered that your absences have impacted upon your studies and that you are not fully prepared for the placement.
Please do not book or seek permission for family holidays during the teaching weeks as this will be declined.
HOLIDAYS ARE NOT PERMITTED IN TEACHING TIME OR WHEN YOU ARE ON PLACEMENT IN SCHOOL
6.ATTENDANCE
The BA (Hons) / BSc (Hons) Secondary Education with QTS* programme is a professional programme and you will normally be required to be in university between 9.00 am and 5.00 pm each day, although this may vary slightly at times. Timings will be set in order that you have access to the appropriate resources for your subject. Once you are in school you must fit in with the normal arrangements for staff in that school. This may mean, for example, starting at 8.30 am and leaving school at 4.30 pm. During your time in school, you are expected to attend meetings and events that constitute part of the work of a member of staff (such as parents’ evenings). Should you have any difficulties with this then you should discuss this with your Course Leader. During the course you will be required to report all absences (and for each day of any absence) and to apply for any leave due to exceptional circumstances in advance. All absences due to illness must be supported by medical certification. Term dates and dates for school experience (correct at time of printing) are included in Appendix 1.
It is essential that you let family and friends know your term dates as soon as possible in case they are planning to arrange holidays for you.
Attendance Requirement for Standards Related Modules
An attendance requirement is in operation for all Standards-related modules across the BA (Hons) / BSc (Hons) Secondary Education with QTS* programme. This is formalised through tracking of trainee attendance and the operation of Academic and Professional Review Meetings (APRMs) at specified points to remediate where needed.
7.BECOMING A REFLECTIVE PRACTITIONER
The process of becoming a teacher will involve you reflecting on your work in school and university and evaluating your teaching as well as pupil learning. More than at any other time, today's teachers are faced with an ever escalating duty to improve and evaluate their practice. Employing reflective practice entails a range of complex issues and is neither a passive consideration nor contemplation; it is an active process and requires vigour to thrive.
Reflection and reflective practice is currently of great interest to teachers. Learning from reflective processes has the power to heighten and illustrate the realities of the context in which practice takes place and to help guide practitioners to recount and comprehend their own feelings and input in the situation. Thus, reflection enables us to recreate the experience in our mind and reflect on events, thoughts and feelings.
Three personal attributes are vital to becoming a reflective practitioner: commitment, energy and a willingness to learn, but in order to learn from our experience we first need to make sense of it. We interpret our experience all the time, unconsciously in routine or familiar situations, but more consciously in unexpected or unfamiliar situations. Reflection-in-action takes place during a planned action, from beginning to completion, or until the action has been perceived to have failed. Reflection-on-action means reflecting on an action after it has been executed. Nonetheless, through reflecting on our reflections-in-action, we may centre our understanding of a problem or indeed produce a better remedy, although this may be quite demanding at times.
There are three key stages in the reflective process:
1Triggered by an awareness of uncomfortable feelings and thoughts. This arises from the discovery that, in a situation, the knowledge one was applying was inadequate in itself to account for the phenomenon in that unique situation.
2Includes a constructive, critical analysis of the situation, which will also examine feelings and knowledge. Here it is necessary to utilise positive feelings and eliminating any dissenting feelings.
3Involves the development of a new perspective on the circumstance. The outcome of reflection, therefore, is learning.
Given that it is important to be aware of the processes involved in reflection, in order to use reflection as a learning tool, it is essential to be able to identify the skills required. Self-awareness, analysis of feeling, knowledge and the involvement of a new perspective are critical to reflection.
The following questions will serve as a guide for a reflective thinking process whilst you are on the course, either in university or on school experience:
* What was my role in this situation?
* Did I feel comfortable or uncomfortable? Why?
* What actions did I take?
* How did people act?
* Was it appropriate?
*How could I have improved the situation for myself and others (fellow students/ pupils, my mentor)?
* What can I change in future?
* Do I feel as if I have learnt anything new about myself?