Dear Student
I hope that you have had a successful year and I am looking forward to you joining Sheffield Hallam in September 2017 for our ITE course. This will be the fifth year of our School Direct salaried and training routes. We are delighted to be at the forefront of this exciting new route into teaching. We pride ourselves on the strong alliances we have with our partnership schools, all of which offer the opportunity to work with outstanding teachers who are dedicated to the development of high-quality reflective practitioners.
This is also the eleventh year our combined Post Graduate Certificate of Education and Professional Graduate Certificate of Education. Both the School Direct and PGCE routes provide qualified teacher status. The final award will be dependent on meeting the assessment requirements at the appropriate level. Those of you who are successful in meeting the criteria for Masters Level in the designated modules will gain PGCE with 60 credits at Masters Level.
The year 2016-2017 has been a very successful one. We recruited easily to our allocation number and all of this year’s full-time trainees have already gained employment, many in partnership schools. This is an indication of the strength and reputation of our course and the quality of our trainees.
We are optimistic that your cohort will be another high quality one and one that will make a major contribution to English teaching in our schools. Our PGCE course has consistently gained very good grades from Ofsted and has a very good national reputation. The new School Direct programme of study will sustain and build upon the best of what our established PGCE course has to offer.
The School Direct and PGCE courses are intensive ones and you will each enter the course with different strengths and areas to develop. In order to prepare you for the course we are recommending some summer reading.
Key Preparations/Readings (3 or 4):
- Green, A. (ed.) (2013). A Practical Guide to Teaching English in the Secondary School. Routledge
- Stevens, D. (2012). A Guided Reader for Secondary English Pedagogy and Practice. London: Routledge
- Kidd, D. (2014). Teaching; notes from the front line. Independent Thinking Press
- Illingworth, M. (2015). Think Before You Teach. Independent Thinking Press
Additional Reading List:
Flynn, L. Hahn, D. Reuben, S. 2nd edition. (2010). The Ultimate Teen Book Guide. A&C Black Publishing
Illingworth, M. and Hall, N. (2012). Teaching English Language 16-19: A comprehensive guide for teachers of AS/A2 level English Language. NATE
McDougall, J. and Potamitis, P. 2nd edition. (2010). The Media Teacher’s Book. Hodder education.
McGuinn,N. (2014). The English Teacher’s Drama Handbook. Routledge.
Link to subject and subject association websites:
The National Association for Teachers of English (NATE) is a professional organisation dedicated to sharing and disseminating good practice in English. We strongly recommend that you become a member of NATE in order to develop your subject knowledge and pedagogy and ensure that you keep up to date with current theory and practice relating to English teaching. NATE offers free membership whilst you are on our course. Members will receive copies of the Teaching English magazine and the English in Education journal as well as regular newsletters. We will enrol you at the beginning of the course but please take the time to look at their website.
http://www.nate.org.uk/index.php?page=78
Other sites of interest;
Also take the time to visit an exam board website;
Preliminary Subject Knowledge Audit:
After reading through the curriculum and key specifications above, identify the following:
- 3 key areas in which you feel confident / have substantial experience.
- 3 key areas where you feel less confident / lack experience in.
You will be required to complete a more detailed subject knowledge audit at the start of your course.
In order to keep up to date with developments in education we recommend that you read the TES (Times Educational Supplement- www.tes.co.uk) and the Guardian Education supplement (www.theguardian.com/education). We also recommend that you regularly read a broadsheet newspaper. You should also make use of twitter to keep up to date with what is happening in the world of education.