As part of the third year, under the Communicating and Teaching module and the Undergraduate Ambassador's Scheme, students will take a placement in a local school.
Students are expected to spend the equivalent of half a day each week for ten weeks during semester two in their school (though often students may want to do more) and to keep a regular blog recording, reflecting on and evaluating their experiences in order to provide the evidence base for their final written report.
Students will typically be involved in the following activities:
Classroom observation and assistance:
Watching how the teacher handles the class, observing the level being taught and the structure of the lesson, and offering practical support to the teacher.
Teaching assistance
The teacher will assign the student actual teaching tasks, which will vary dependent on specific needs and the student’s own ability as it develops over the term. This could include, for example, offering problem-solving coaching to a small group of high ability pupils, or taking the last ten minutes of the lesson for the whole class.
Whole class teaching
Students will typically be offered, in collaboration with their teachers, at least one opportunity to undertake whole class teaching, albeit possibly only for a small part of one lesson.
University awareness
Students will represent and promote their academic discipline as a potential university choice to pupils across the social and academic range represented at their partner schools.
Special projects
The student will devise a special project on the basis of discussion with the teacher and their own assessment of what is suitable for the particular pupils they are working with. The student will implement the special project and (important) evaluate it.
A special project might consist of an extra-curricular activity of some kind. For example, the student may be supervised by the teacher in helping to run an out-of-timetable activity, such as a lunchtime club or special coaching periods for higher ability pupils.
The course provided me with a lot of opportunities and gave me examples to demonstrate each of the tick boxes alongside job applications including team working and independent thinking which made it a really useful degree in that aspect as well.