Successful Secondary School Placement

This book is intended to be a practical guide to securing the best possible experience from teacher training placements in school, which is an essential part of every teacher training course. The handbook will comprise three main sections, which relate to three key learning phases of professional development during teacher training: Beginning, Developing and Extending Practice. This will be preceded by a section on 'Preparing for Your Placement'. Each of the 'phases' will explore common strands which run throughout the handbook. Headings for these strands are: Subject Knowledge; How Students Learn; Class management; Planning learning; Inclusion; Assessment; Cultural diversity; The Use of ICT to support learning. The book will feature a wider range of generic training activities open to beginning secondary school teachers and coverage across the main themes of the QTS Standards. These will include:

- Case studies to prompt reflection and discussion.

- Training actions to work alongside mentor/other school based colleagues

- Using guided observations

- Action-research projects (e.g. questionnaires to identify strategies that support students learning)

- Training actions to trial out in own practice

- Ideas galleries and/or reflection points

- Suggested reading (which can inform reflections and case studies)

- In the final phase 'Extending Practice' suggestions for further research to inform their Career Entry Development Profile and NQT training

In addition, beginning teachers will be encouraged to evaluate their progress through the use of self-audit tools at the end of each phase. This would be linked to portfolio development which is a feature of most Initial Teacher Education (ITE) routes. The process of the self-audit and reflection will guide readers towards selecting evidence of practice/progress towards meeting the Standards for Qualified Teacher Status.