Education (Primary)
From the program director
Welcome to the Bachelor of Education site for primary-teachers-in-training.
Over the four years you spend with us you will work with a wide range of teaching staff, all of whom are dedicated and experienced.
Every lecturer in primary education has been teacher of primary school children. Geographically, the places in which we've taught include Pakistan, Thailand, Fiji, the US and Japan, as well as the Australian states and territories. Quite a number of us visit schools regularly and work alongside school staff. At last count, members of the primary team were working in over 20 different primary schools.
You will also work with a stimulating, diverse and supportive group of fellow students who, like you, aspire to be the best teacher they can. Your classmates will come from many different parts of Sydney and elsewhere and, reflecting the nature of most of your future classrooms, your compatriots will represent a wide range of cultural and linguistic backgrounds. The primary program is one where you will have plenty of opportunities to make new friends and feel like a valued member in a team of like-minded beginning teachers.
You will meet teachers here who are passionate about both the education of children and the development of enthusiastic, skilful and thoughtful teachers. We combine these twin passions with wide-ranging interests, including astronomy and weather studies, multimedia, the internet and creative teaching, children's literature, performing and creative arts, languages, sport, early numeracy in children, gifted-and-talented education and global education.
We look forward to working with you as you pursue your goals.
Program Director
Associate Professor Armstrong Osborne
Staff research activities
The Faculty of Education and Social Work hosts active researchers who are working on a diverse range of projects, many with teachers in schools. Projects include:
- the development of professional learning communities (Professor Robyn Ewing)
- quality teaching and learning for gifted learners (Associate Professor David Evans)
- challenge and assisted performance in multilingual classrooms (Dr Paul Dufficy)
- strategies teachers employ to develop the 'Working Mathematically' strand for primary children (Associate Professor Janette Bobis)
- the integration of ICT in language classrooms (Associate Professor Lesley Harbon)
- children's online discussion of books (Dr Alyson Simpson)
- understanding attitudes to art, art-making and art education (Dr Robyn Gibson)
- the value of the creative arts to learning and development (Dr Robyn Gibson, Professor Robyn Ewing and Associate Professor Michael Anderson).
Planning for your development
We are currently rethinking how best we can assist you to become the teachers you want to be. Our belief is that a key component of this goal is how effectively you are introduced and assisted to participate in the professional teaching community.
To this end, each year in the course is regarded as a developmental step towards the formation of your professional identity, and each step is imbued with a discrete theme.
| Developmental step | Theme | |
|---|---|---|
|
Year 1 |
engagement |
dispositions |
|
Year 2 |
exploration |
diversity |
|
Year 3 |
establishment |
linkage |
|
Year 4 |
empowerment |
change |
And after graduation:
| Developmental step | Theme | |
|---|---|---|
|
Year 5 + |
enhancement |
assisting growth |
We aim to continually refine aspects of this model, in particular, students' experiences in schools, the nature of assessment tasks, and links to the NSW graduate standards.