Secondary Art and Design PGCE

Program Overview

This teacher training program develops highly qualified and confident art and design teachers through a combination of lectures, seminars, and extensive school placements. It provides subject-specific knowledge, educational theory, and practical teaching skills, preparing graduates for QTS and rewarding careers in secondary art and design education. The program is supported by experienced specialist staff and fosters students' creativity, critical self-evaluation, and reflective practice.

Program Outline

Degree Overview:

Develop as a highly qualified, effective and confident teacher of art and design studying with an experienced specialist team to gain the knowledge and skills you need to teach your specialist subject. This largely school-based course is designed to give you the subject-specific knowledge, secure understanding of educational theory and practical teaching skills to lead learning; initiate change; and thrive as a teacher in a challenging and rewarding profession.

Outline:

• Taught Sessions: Attend lectures and seminars designed to develop your awareness and understanding of professional issues; the nature and content of the art and design curriculum; the role of Information Communication Technology (ICT) in the teaching of art and design; and aspects of teaching such as planning and assessment.
• School Placements: Spend around 70% of your time in placement schools where you are trained to teach across the 11-16 age range.
You develop the skills and knowledge to teach art and design in a creative and imaginative way using a variety of different approaches.

Assessment:

• The Curriculum Specialist (Secondary Art And Design): This unit aims to develop your knowledge of learning and teaching in the specific context of Secondary Art and Design.
You will explore the development of Art and Design specific pedagogy by considering recent research about the teaching and learning of Art and Design and evaluating the impact, in your own teaching practice, of the ideas and theories presented. You will be supported to evaluate and improve your knowledge of the school Art and Design curriculum content and to apply your pedagogic and subject knowledge creatively in the planning and evaluating of your own teaching. By selecting, applying and evaluating a range of theories about the teaching and learning of Art and Design, you will develop a personal pedagogic stance which will prepare you to assume the role of a leader of Art and Design learning.
• The Evidence Informed Curriculum Specialist: This unit aims to encourage you to build on your knowledge about learning and teaching and the application of that knowledge in practice.
Key to the unit is a focus on the development of evidence informed teaching, through an extended systematic study of your own practice. Within the unit, therefore, you will continually be encouraged to explore what is known about the learning in your subject and to demonstrate independence and creativity in evaluating the relevance of that knowledge in your own context.
• School Experience 1: As part of this unit, you will undertake a school placement designed to enable you to observe and practise the procedures which support effective preparation for beginning to demonstrate the teaching and learning in respect to achieving the Teachers’ Standards (DfE, 2012).
This placement’s teaching pattern is designed to ensure that you successfully make the transition from observing and supporting lessons to independently planning and delivering lessons during the placement. It also aims to help you to develop a range of school contextualised behaviour management strategies, which you are increasingly able to apply effectively and appropriately in keeping with the placement school’s behaviour management policy.
• School Experience 2: As part of this unit, you will undertake a school placement designed to enable you to demonstrate the teaching and learning in respect to achieving the Teachers’ Standards (DfE, 2012) by the end of the course.
The unit ensures you continue to develop and apply your experience from School Experience 1 and develop the integrated additional elements of promoting good progress, effective use of assessment, adapting teaching to suit groups of pupils and fulfilling wider professional expectations.

Teaching:

• Faculty: All teaching-training staff have QTS and were previously employed as teachers and/or head teachers; we also have teaching staff who are school governors or active members of their national subject associations.
Many of our graduates go on to rewarding employment in local schools.

Other:

• Hone your skills of critical self-evaluation and gain confidence in analysing your own practical experience during your school placements.
• Engage with relevant research literature and develop the skills of a reflective and research-informed practitioner.
• Develop your creativity and team-working skills, preparing you to influence and lead in educational settings while enhancing your own sense of independence.
• Ofsted: We are a ‘Good’ provider with Outstanding in Quality of leadership and management across our partnerships.
• Graduate Outcomes: 95% of our Education and Teaching graduates are in employment or further studies 15 months after graduating (HESA Graduate Outcomes, 2023).
• Employment: Over 90% of students across all courses are employed within the first six months of graduation.
• Undergraduate Primary Education Graduates: 100% of our undergraduate Primary Education graduates have secured jobs by the end of their course.