8. Assignments for Student Teachers

English as a core subject

Throughout the four year undergraduate course assignments include:

Year 1

This assignment is based on a writing session which undertaken with a group of children on their school experience. As well as providing a rationale and an evaluation of the taught session, student teachers are required to analyse the children’s writing and to produce a booklet of the writing for display in our primary centre.

Year 2

While on school experience, student teachers working with children in KS1 are required to focus on one child, to build up a picture of his or her reading. They conduct a miscue analysis of this child’s reading and also carry out a reading interview. They are asked to identify the strategies the child is using, to set targets for the child and consider the kinds of experiences that might help the child to achieve these.

Those working with children in the Early Years are asked to observe and identify early literacy behaviours in a number of contexts. They then similarly identify the strategies the child is using, to set targets for the child and consider the kinds of experiences that might help the child to achieve these.

Year 3

This is a joint assignment on speaking and listening in English, mathematics and science. Student teachers are required to record a group of children engaged in a task and then to identify and analyse the learning taking place in the group.

Year 4

Prior to school experience, student teachers plan and give an oral presentation of an ICT resource to support learning in one of the core subjects. Student teachers reflect on and evaluate the resource in a written report after their school experience.

PGCE

Student teachers on our one year Post Graduate courses undertake one assignment in English of 2,500 words, which is similar to the Year 2 assignment on our undergraduate courses.

Connections to Standards
Year 1
Q 7, 8, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 23, 25, 26.
Year 2
Q 4, 5, 11, 12, 14, 15, 18, 19, 21b, 26, 27, 28.
Year 3
Q 4, 5, 6, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 22.
Year 4
Q 4, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 25, 26.

National Curriculum: Clearly all components have been addressed.

English as a Specialist Subject.

On our four year courses we also have a large number of student teachers who have chosen English as a specialist subject. These student teachers hope to be English subject leaders. On their courses we aim to extend and deepen their subject knowledge and their written assignments reflect this: they are expected to have read widely and carried out small scale school based research projects. Their written assignments include some of the following:

• A critical appraisal of both poetry and novels for children.
• A collaborative review and classroom display of a work of fiction.
• A study of their own linguistic repertoire.
• A study of children’s informal language and play outside the classroom.
• An oral presentation of a recent article – this takes place in both second and third years in order to give specialists an awareness of current issues and research.
• A study based on the small group talk of children working with a poem or story.
• All student teachers have the option to write a 10,000 word dissertation involving a small scale research project in their specialist subject.

Working with student teachers who have chosen English as their main subject will sometimes allow more time for the student teachers to broaden their own experience: to take part in drama activities, develop their skills and confidence as writers, readers, storytellers and experiment with using digital cameras, interactive whiteboards, and digital video editing tools.

These skills may be assessed in a number of different ways:

• Use of ICT skills to publish a fiction/non-fiction text/poetry anthology
• A collaborative storytelling or drama presentation.
• Use of camera or video to present a narrative or information text.
• A thematic display of children’s literature relating to a particular age group.

Where possible, student teachers are asked to suggest areas of particular interest that they would like to submit for assessment.

For tutors working only with PGCE student teachers, this programme is not appropriate. The assumption is that many student teachers who have first degrees in English will have covered this sort of territory and gained some of this expertise.