This pattern continues for about ten weeks before the first six week block teaching practice is undertaken. Overall our aims are to prepare you as well as time allows for your experiences in school, to set you on the pathway to becoming an analytical, critical and reflective practitioner, to meet as many individual needs as possible and to complement the work undertaken with you by our partnership schools. The Professional Year forms a bridging course between university work anda professional career. It is both a course of academic study and a course of professional training. Consequently we set and expect high academic and professional standards.
Many students say that the year is very demanding, intellectually, emotionally and physically.
However, it is often also a most stimulating and rewarding one - a period of considerable personal development. Within the Mathematics Education Centre, the course is underpinned by the belief that learners must be actively engaged in, and in control of, their own learning. There is much paired and small group work, with an emphasis upon activity and discussion. This collaborative approach requires the development of personal skills and qualities which are central to the professional development of teachers. In particular, you will consider how pupils acquire the competence and confidence to use, apply and enjoy mathematics.