University of Gloucestershire Secondary PGCE
STS English (KS3) Programme 2003

The STS programme focuses on the teaching of English at key stage 3 and therefore will follow closely the training provided by the DFES for following the KS3 Strategy in teaching English at this level.

You will need to be familiar with the KS3 English Objectives, and it would be a good idea to download these from the internet so they rest happily on a computer to which you have easy and frequent access. (Look at DFES KS3 English Site index ).

We shall use a novel written for children, Louis Sachar's Holes, as a model of a text round which to base a scheme of work. Please make sure you have a copy of this book and have read it (it's not long) before the appropriate session.

The assessment of this part of the course is in two parts.

Firstly, you will have to prepare a 'session report' on one of the first nine sessions. (These will be allocated at the first session.) This report will include three elements: a secretarial account of the session content; a reflection on the theme and content based on your own experience in school; a certain amount of extended reading which will broaden the scope of the work. We shall be able each week to direct you towards such wider reading.

Secondly, at the final session, you will give a short presentation (with luscious handouts I'm sure) in which you each wax lyrical about the effect this short course has had on your teaching of literacy within your main subject.

All the sessions will take place somewhere on the Francis Close campus and will run from 9.15 to 12.15 when they take place in the morning and from 2.15 to 5.15 when they take place in the afternoon, with some local variation as required.