So You Want to be a Teacher?: A Guide for Prospective Student Teachers

111 Pages·2008·2.79 MB·English

by  Fred Sedgwick

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So You Want to
be a Teacher?
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So You Want to
be a Teacher?
Fred Sedgwick
Los Angeles •London •New Delhi •Singapore
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© Fred Sedgwick 2008
First published 2008
Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as
permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, this publication may be reproduced,
stored or transmitted in any form, or by any means, only with the prior permission in writing of the
publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction, in accordance with the terms of licences issued
by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be
sent to the publishers.
SAGE Publications Ltd
1 Oliver’s Yard
55 City Road
London EC1Y 1SP
SAGE Publications Inc
2455 Teller Road
Thousand Oaks, California 91320
SAGE Publications India Pvt Ltd
B1/I1 Mohan Cooperative Industrial Area
Mathura Road
New Delhi 110 044
SAGE Publications Asia-Pacific Pte Ltd
33 Pekin Street #02–01
Far East Square
Singapore 048763
Library of Congress Control Number:2007936693
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN-978-1-4129-4507-3
ISBN-978-1-4129-4508-0 (pbk)
Typeset by Pantek Arts Ltd, Maidstone, Kent
Printed in India by Replika Press
Printed on paper from sustainable resources
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for Daniel, again
‘By learning you will teach; by teaching you will learn.’
(Latin proverb, quoted in Grey, 2003)
‘I touch the future. I teach.’
(Christa McAuliffe, the first civilian in space)
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Acknowledgements
I am grateful to my friends for their comments: Rosa Aers, Emma Bayliss, John
Fisher, Seamus Fox, Carly Gulliver, Jill Haine, David Hampson, Dorothy
Hampson, Terri Morgan, Emily Roeves, Colin Sedgwick, Daniel Sedgwick and
Nina Sedgwick. And especially, Helen Fairlie of SAGE. None of them is, of
course, responsible for any crudities that remain.
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Contents
Abbreviations ix
Preface: A back-pocket book xi
Chapter 1 ‘Teaching is the profession that creates all others’ 1
The teachers’ world 1
Voices from the non-teaching world 2
Teaching – a vocation? 4
Choosing a career – or a job? 5
The saloon bar and the classroom 5
Four groups of readers 6
What is a teacher? 7
Schooling isn’t what it’s about 7
So what is teaching about? 9
Education as a business 12
Chapter 2 Teaching in a school 13
Good news 13
Do you remember? 17
Mind-map your old school 20
Visiting a school 22
Comparing schools 27
Chapter 3 Getting into teaching 29
Qualifications you need whatever route you follow 30
Routes into teaching in England 30
Routes into teaching in Scotland, Wales and
Northern Ireland 37
Skills tests 39
Standards required for QTS 40
Money matters 42
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viii SOYOUWANTTO BE ATEACHER?
Chapter 4 How to study 46
Read the papers 47
Read books 48
Thinking 52
Writing 53
Talking in groups 58
Chapter 5 In the thick of it 62
Two teaching placements 62
How to prepare for a placement 65
Some basic issues to consider when on a placement 66
How to get a job 87
Afterword 89
References 95
Index 97
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Abbreviations
AST Advanced Skills Teacher
BA/BSc Bachelor of Arts/Science: the most common first degrees; some
first degrees in Scotland are Master of Arts degrees (MA)
CertEd Certificate of Education: teaching qualification before it became
a graduate profession
GCSE General Certificate of Secondary Education
GTC General Teaching Council
GTCNI General Teaching Council for Northern Ireland
GTP Graduate Teacher Programme
GTTR Graduate Teacher Training Registry
HEI Higher Education Institute (Scotland and Wales)
ICT Information and Communications Technology
Inset In-service education for teachers, according to me. More
usually, In-service education and training. But, as I will write
later, training is about being pulled along preordained tracks,
and only incidentally related to education.
LSA Learning Support Assistant. This is problematic. They are
sometimes called TAs (Teaching Assistants). I have stuck with
the former because it focuses on learning and is more
democratic.
M-level PGCE Masters level Postgraduate Certificate of Education. This is new
and involves gaining sixty Masters level credits.
NARIC National Academic Recognition Initiative Centre
NQT Newly Qualified Teacher
O levels the old equivalent of GCSEs
Ofsted Office for Standards in Education, Childen’s Services and Skills.
Tyrell Burgess (2002) offers a definition, ‘organisation issuing
reports which are the educational equivalent of station
announcements, intrusive, vaguely menacing and unintelligible’.
Disgraceful, of course. Some schools find Ofsted inspections
helpful.
PGCE Postgraduate Certificate of Education
PGDE Postgraduate Diploma in Education (Scotland)
PPA Preparation, Planning and Assessment – all teachers are given
time within the school week for this