The module used Dr Saunders’s synthesis of leadership for learning to enable trainees to identify and promote their own Personal Teaching Philosophy. It was taught in dialogue with Mike Bottery (2022), The Educational Leader in a World of Covert Threats: Creating Multi-Level Sustainability, and Michael Schiro (2012), Curriculum Theory: Conflicting Visions and Enduring Concerns.

In this second-year module, trainees took a historical perspective on the development of education and schooling in the UK. They traced the factors that shaped the values underpinning current policy, practice and discourse in primary education. In doing so, they developed a critical understanding that values are not fixed: they have not always been as they are now, and there is no reason to assume they will remain so.

This focus on the past deepened trainees’ critical understanding of the present and informed their professional values and teacher identities. They examined the influence of rhetoric on values, policies and practices in education. They also developed the knowledge, skills and confidence to challenge injustice and inequality in their advocacy for children.

This third-year module gave student teachers the opportunity to individualise their programme, pursue personal interests or explore new aspects of research and practice through two short, focused studies. Those choosing P4C completed the SAPERE Level 1 certificate, integrated into six seminars (12 hours) covering the foundational SAPERE modules.