History, Secondary PGCE
Tutor: Karl Cain
Duration: Full-time 10 months
Requirements: The History PGCE is a popular and oversubscribed course where the possession of at least a 2:2 Honours degree is essential. Applicants should also ensure that their degree includes at least 50% discrete History though the content area (medieval, modern. classical, ancient etc.) is unimportant. Archaeology degrees are considered to be suitable though Law or Politics alone will not be sufficient evidence of the necessary knowledge and understanding relating to History as a subject discipline. Applicants must have a GCSE English Language and Mathematics at grade C or above before commencement of the PGCE Course.
School experience: Some recent experience in a secondary school is required by the time of interview
Important note: this course fill up very quickly and in previous years has closed in early November
Course Description
Which great British heroes are worth teaching about? How would you go about teaching the Holocaust? Such decisions reveal history's status as a subject of controversy and interpretation. Issues of how you select what to teach, and the alternative ways in which you can teach history will figure prominently within the course. It will prepare you to teach history, in the context of current developments, by equipping you with the necessary classroom skills.
Although the course is essentially practical, it is important that you should gain an appreciation of why you do what you do. Many young people find learning history difficult. You will need to understand why this is so, and then be able to devise, manage and deliver learning strategies which facilitate thinking skills through history.
Coursework
The course has been planned in partnership between students, the School and history teachers within local schools. Its structure is analogous to a gateaux whereby initial layers of professional experience, pedagogical expertise and a capacity for self-evaluation are set in motion in the first term and then are all re-visited later in the course. As your experience develops, so should the levels of sophistication by which you analyse teaching and learning situations.
To widen your repertoire of teaching styles, various opportunities will feature including:
- how to use stories
- dramatic techniques
- site visits, information technology
- and how to work with pupils on historical re-constructions.
Throughout the course it is expected that you will take on a significant measure of responsibility for evaluating your own progress. In addition to action planning and target setting, you will also be asked to work together to present aspects of pedagogy in seminar contexts.
You are also expected to support and assist curriculum initiatives relevant to the history department to which you will be attached for the Long School Experience. By so doing your commitment will - in some way - begin to repay the significant measure of support offered to you by your history Mentor.
PGCE Enquiries:
Tel: 0191 222 6581
Fax: 0191 222 6546
E-mail: pgce-education@ncl.ac.uk
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