Professional Studies in Primary Education

This textbook provides a wide-ranging overview of everything you will need to know to prepare you for initial teacher training and your early career in the primary classroom.

Covering practical issues including planning, assessment and classroom organisation, and thought-provoking topics such as reflecting on your own teaching practice and developing critical thinking skills, this textbook gives you a pragmatic and insightful understanding of teaching in primary schools.

This third edition has been comprehensively revised to include new chapters on:

• Personal, social, health and economic education (PSHE)
• Safeguarding and your responsibilities
• Teaching EAL learners
• Behaviour management and encouraging behaviour for learning
• Inclusion and special educational needs, including the 2015 SEND Code of Practice
• Critical perspectives on fundamental British values
• Moving on to Master’s level study

This is essential reading for all students on primary initial teacher education courses including university-based (PGCE, BEd, BA with QTS), and schools-based (School Direct, SCITT, Teach First) routes into teaching.

Hilary Cooper is Professor Emeritus of History and Pedagogy at the University of Cumbria. After many years teaching in London primary schools and undertaking her doctoral research on child development using data collected as a class teacher, she lectured in education at Goldsmiths’ College, London University. In 1993 she became Director of Professional Studies in the Department of Education at Lancaster University, then Reader, and later Professor of Education at St Martin’s College, now the University of Cumbria. She has published widely, in numerous languages; the underlying theme of all her books is ‘teaching creatively’. She has been a keynote speaker at, and continues to organise international conferences.

Sally Elton-Chalcraft is Professor of Social Justice in Education and also the Director of the Learning Education and Development Research centre in the Institute of Education at the University of Cumbria, UK. She was a school teacher and Head of Department working with 4 to 14 year olds for eleven years before working in three Universities as a Teacher Educator over the last two decades. She is convenor of the Religions, Values and Education special interest group for the British Education Research Association. She teaches on undergraduate, graduate, masters and doctoral programmes and publishes in the areas of  Religious Education, anti racism, special educational needs and school leadership. She has been invited to give keynotes in India, Germany, Ireland and the UK. Throughout her career as a primary school teacher, teacher educator and academic she has been passionate about exploring issues of social justice and making education accessible and thought provoking leading to a fairer world.