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Primary (3-7) Leadership Development

Module description

This module will enable you to develop your knowledge and understanding of teaching the Early Years curriculum. It will give you the chance to explore what curriculum leadership is and how you might prepare to be a curriculum leader in Early Years in your future teaching career. This module will be taken alongside the Primary (3-7) Education Theory, Research and Practice module, the Primary (3-7) Curriculum Theory, Research and Practice module and the Primary (3-7) Professional Learning in Schools module.

Module aims - intentions of the module

The principal aims of the module are to:

• enable you to gain a comprehensive and up to date understanding of the theory, issues and practice relating to current teaching of early years;
• developing an initial understanding of leadership in early years to enable you to evaluate and select materials, understand the importance of assessment and target setting, and support your colleagues’ early years teaching.
• nurture your development as a reflective and autonomous professional practitioner who is able to identify strengths and areas for development in your subject knowledge and pedagogy, through evaluating current professional practice in relationship to developments in research and educational theory.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 1. Identify and evaluate educational concepts and issues related to early years teaching and engage in critical debate about current educational issues, drawing on evidence from theory, research and practice
• 2. Deploy a range of personal and professional skills relevant to early years teaching
• 3. Identify and justify solutions to teaching and learning problems relevant to early years teaching
• 4. Demonstrate development of academic and pedagogic subject knowledge relevant to early years teaching

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 5. Critically evaluate the relevance of research and theory to practice
• 6. Synthesise relevant literature in support of an argument
• 7. Use appropriate technologies for data handling and writing
• 8. Present data and findings in an appropriate form
• 9. Use research data in support of an argument

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

• 10. Learn effectively and be aware of your own learning strategies
• 11. Competently use library and electronic resources including databases, websites and virtual learning environments to support learning.

Syllabus plan

The module engages you in the current thinking of teaching of early years and develops your pedagogic and academic subject knowledge in this field.

Whilst the precise contents and order may vary from year to year, key elements of the module might include:

• educational theories related to good learning and teaching in early years;
• practical experience of a variety of classroom activities;
• critiquing resources and commercial schemes;
• collaborative learning and interactive classrooms;
• cross curricular approaches;

On the PGCE, you will learn and reflect on the skills and knowledge required by the programme’s credit-bearing and non-credit bearing modules throughout the year. You will need to think about the modules in relation to each other. To facilitate this, the learning and teaching activities and guided independent study described below are scheduled to occur across all three terms both in the context of your university taught course and in the context of your 24 weeks of applied professional  experience in schools.

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Formative assessment

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Details of summative assessment

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

• Haylock, D. and Cockburn, A. (2017) Understanding Mathematics for Young Children: a guide for teachers of children 3-7. SAGE
• Bradbury, A. and Swailes, R. (2024) A Child Centred EYFS. SAGE

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

• Statutory framework for the early years foundation stage for group and school providers (publishing.service.gov.uk)

Key words search

PGCE, QTS, Qualified Teacher Status, Teaching, Primary, Early Years, Education, Schools, Teacher, Teacher Training