Teaching and Learning for trainees - Practical training ideas

This unit offers some ideas for seminars and group activities which tutors could run for their trainees.

Mock Lesson
A brief for running a mock lesson within a training session.
Citizenship - Using paired independent research to help trainees become familiar with Citizenship and how it fits within Business Education.
Icebreakers - an activity aimed at those early days in the training and for trainees to take into their first days as a teacher. Please be aware of the 'health warnings' and give particular thought to the target audience or participants.
Business Ethics
An activity to raise trainee awareness of the impact of multi-culturalism in the teaching of business studies and financial literacy within the citizenship curriculum.

Enterprise Day
As part of the training for Business PGCE at University of Portsmouth School of Education and Continuing Studies, students are asked to plan, organise and run two one day workshops on Enterprise for able pupils from schools in the Portsmouth Partnership. 

A complete example of the plans and resources produced by one pair of trainees at one of these workshops where they developed a Music Enterprise Day can be downloaded from here. Not only is this material exemplar material to give guidance on the type of resources that can be produced at such a workshop, it could also be adapted by the enthusiastic trainee or NQT who may have the opportunity to run a similar activity in a school.

On a smaller scale, trainees could be set a task in pairs to produce lesson plans and accompanying resources. Groups which might form the focus of an assignment might include:

  • Gifted and talented pupils
  • Special Needs pupils
  • A revision group

Syllabus topics which lend themselves well to creating imaginative resources include:

  • Setting up and running a mini-company
  • Interviewing and appointing a member of staff
  • An induction programme
  • Specialisation
  • Team work
  • Supply and Demand