A blog for students on the FDLT and BALT courses at the University of Northampton

at Leicester and UN

Blog Archives

September 2, 2019
by Jean
0 comments

What to bring along to the first week

Today you will receive an email from Abbie Deeming, the course leader. You will probably be thinking about the first day and what to bring. Here is a reminder:

You must bring:

2 forms of ID for enrolment

You can check what else you need to bring for enrolment here.

You should bring:

Something to use to make notes in

An academic year diary or calendar

You might like to bring:

Food and drink:

A packed lunch or money to buy lunch in the student restaurant / local shops at lunchtime.

A drink and / or money to buy a drink at breaks. If you bring a reusable cup hot drinks are cheaper.

Useful information to collect:

When you begin to take part in discussion about your setting and when you begin to write assignments you will need some basic information about your school to provide contextual background. It would be useful if you could collect this information and have it to hand over the opening weeks of the course.

This includes:

Type of School (LA / Academy etc)

Location of school (rural, suburban, urban)

Age of pupils

Number of pupils on roll

Number and type of staff

% of pupils with SEND

% of pupils learning EAL

% of pupils with Pupil Premium

Unusual or distinctive features of the school

August 26, 2019
by Jean
0 comments

Preparing your workspace

As you begin university you will need to consider where you are going to study at home and begin to prepare this space so that you are ready to use it from the beginning of September.

There are some hints and tips here that you might find useful.

When you begin year 1 of the FDLT course you will be studying these modules:

PDT1065 Pupil Engagement and Assessment

PDT1066 Introduction to SEND, Diversity and Inclusion

PDT1068 English and Maths: Core Subjects

PDT1076 Using Digital Technology to Inspire and Support Learning

PDT1077 Work Based Reflection

PDT1078 The Practitioner’s Role

You will find these titles useful to label files and set up folders on your computer. 

August 26, 2019
by Jean
0 comments

Getting to know your new group

Before you start the FDLT course we’d like you to introduce yourself to the group on these Padlets.

Leicester group Padlet.

UN group Padlet. 

There is no need to have a Padlet account of your own to post onto the Padlet. All you need to do is click on the link above to open the Padlet and click on the pink plus sign to open a box to type into.

 

 

You can also upload a photo by clicking on the upload arrow at the bottom left below the text box.

If you want to comment or ask a question you can comment below the posts.

Please make sure that you have done this by September 4th.

If you need any help with this you can email jean.edwards@northampton.ac.uk 

August 12, 2019
by Jean
0 comments

Some reading before you start the course

Here are some suggestions for pre-course reading:

Bates, B. (2016). Learning theories simplified : … and how to apply them to teaching. London: Sage.

Have a look in particular at the sections on Vygotsky, Bruner, Dewey, Piaget and Skinner.  This book is easy to read and each section is relatively short. You will find it useful in a number of the modules that you study.

Also familiarise yourselves with the findings and recommendations of these two research projects:

Blatchford, P., Bassett, P., Brown, P., Martin, C., Russell, and Webster, R. (2009) Deployment and Impact of Support Staff Project, Research Brief. [online] Available from: http://maximisingtas.co.uk/assets/content/dissressum.pdf [Accessed: 06/08/2019]

Sharples, J., Webster, and Blatchford, P. (2015) Making Best Use of Teaching Assistants Guidance Report. [online] Available from: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/sites/ioe/files/TA_Guidance_Report_MakingBestUseOfTeachingAssisstants.pdf [Accessed: 06/08/2019]

You can click on the links in the references above to access these reports. We will be discussing these in one of the first modules that you will study.

 

August 5, 2019
by Jean
0 comments

Curriculum documents

Throughout the FDLT and BALT courses you will often need to read and refer to curriculum documents. 

These are some of the key documents:

For Early Years:

This is a link to the page where you can access and download the Statutory framework for the early years.

This is the reference that you will use in assignments:

DfE (2019) Statutory framework for the early years. [online] Available from: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-foundation-stage-framework–2 [Accessed 31/07/2019].

For primary and secondary:

This is the link to the full national curriculum for all key stages and subjects. It is this document that you should use in assignments.

This is the reference that you will use in assignments:

DfE (2014) National Curriculum in England: framework for key stages 1 to 4. [online[ Available from: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-framework-for-key-stages-1-to-4 [Accessed: 31/07/2019].

It would be useful for you to save the relevant links, download the documents and read through the pages relevant to your age group.

You should also all read pages 1 to 13 of the national curriculum as this underlies the subject programmes of study. 

July 30, 2019
by Jean
0 comments

Changes to QTS tests

You might have seen in the media recently that the one of the parts of the teacher training application has changed: the QTS skills tests in English and mathematics. 

The government statement says:

“To support this, the government today announced that it is introducing a new approach to assessing the numeracy and literacy of prospective teachers, which will replace the existing skills tests.

The current skills tests will be replaced with a new system where trainees will be assured against a set of fundamental maths and English skills by the end of their initial teacher training.” (DfE, 2019, lines 4 – 9).

You can read more about this change here.

Reference:

DfE (2019) Changes to the professional skills test for teachers. [online] Available from: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/changes-to-the-professional-skills-test-for-teachers [Accessed: 30/07/2019].

July 22, 2019
by Jean
0 comments

The Educators

As students about to start studying in Higher Education it is useful for you to know about people who work in the field of education. A useful way of beginning this is to listen to radio programmes such as The Educators. This is available on Radio 4 at here.

 

You might listen to the episode about mathematics educator, Jo Baoler and then try the episode about educational researcher, John Hattie and then just browse to listen to what takes your interest.

As you listen consider how what you are hearing relates to your own educational experience both as a pupil and as a student, and your professional experience in schools.

Skip to toolbar