This textbook provides a wide-ranging overview of everything you will need to know to prepare you for initial teacher training and your early career in the primary classroom.

Covering practical issues including planning, assessment and classroom organisation, and thought-provoking topics such as reflecting on your own teaching practice and developing critical thinking skills, this textbook gives you a pragmatic and insightful understanding of teaching in primary schools.

Key new edition features:

• Updated coverage of education policy

• Links to the Teachers' Standards

• A new Work in Schools feature addressing key issues student teachers encounter
• Extended coverage of planning and assessment
• A new chapter on workplace learning exploring how to develop as a classroom professional
• Coverage of differences in teaching throughout the UK.

This is essential reading for all students on primary initial teacher education courses including university-based (PGCE, Bed, BA with QTS), and schools-based (School Direct, SCITT) routes into teaching.

Additional online resources at www.uk.sagepub.com/cooper
There are also updated free resources supporting and extending chapters, including activities, case studies, further reading and useful web links.

Hilary Cooper is Professor Emeritus of History and Pedagogy at the University of Cumbria.

'This is a really excellent book that is packed with information. Each chapter provides a rigorous overview of theoretical perspectives combined with a clear examination of teaching standards and sound professional advice. I would recommend this text to anyone interest in teaching and especially to those who aspire to the profession.'

Hilary Cooper is Professor Emeritus of History and Pedagogy at the University of Cumbria. After many years teaching in London primary schools and undertaking her doctoral research on child development using data collected as a class teacher, she lectured in Education at Goldsmiths' College, London University. In 1993 she became Director of Professional Studies in the Department of Education at Lancaster University, then Reader, and later Professor of Education at St Martin's College, now the University of Cumbria. She has published widely and has an international reputation.