We asked our Subject Experts the question. “If a trainee teacher could read one book related to your subject, which should it be? ” Here is what they told us;
Sarah Vaughan – Primary Computing
There are lots of quality texts and videos out there to support trainees with a good understanding on the primary computing curriculum. One of these, is the Computing At School, QuickStart Guide to Computing. This handbook supports trainees with’ the subject knowledge and subject-specific pedagogy teacher need in order to plan, teach and assess the primary computing curriculum effectively and confidently.’
Kirsty England – Secondary Music
Teaching music musically by Keith Swanwick
This book considers what music is, its importance and how music is understood within a social context. It will help trainee teachers understand not just the ‘how’ of teaching music but also the ‘why’.
It discusses the fundamental principles that should underpin all music education and the challenges brought by education policy.
Assessment is also covered, offering insights into how to measure student progress in a valid, reliable and musical way.
It explores the relationship between formal music education and the broader community. This will help trainee teachers understand how to make connections between the classroom and music education in the broadest sense.
Helen Snelson – Secondary History
If a trainee teacher could read one book related to your subject, which should it be?
Just one, that is impossible! I am going to have to take two:
1) For a short introduction to what school history is, then I would start with:” What Is History Teaching?: Language, Ideas and Meaning in Learning about the Past” by Chris Husbands (1996)
2) For an invaluable handbook to introduce you to the wonderful world of history teaching, then the stalwart remains: “Learning to Teach History in the Secondary School: A Companion to School Experience” by Terry Haydn and Alison Stephen. The 5th edition was published in 2021.
Helen Ostell – Primary and Secondary Physical Education
A number spring to mind depending on whether it is primary PE or secondary PE, and in terms of secondary PE whether it is practical or theory PE.
Struggling to narrow it down to just one I asked a sample of other PE specialists via Twitter (X) and below are the most common recommendations:
PRIMARY PE
- Safe Practice: In Physical Education, School Sport and Physical Activity (Published by AfPE in partnership with UK Coaching)
Published every four years, this is the essential reference and developmental tool that offers up-to-date advice across PESSPA, to help teachers, coaches and school governors protect their students and themselves from potential risks across both the curriculum and extra-curricular activities.
- A Year of Primary PE (Mark Carter)
A Year of Primary PE features 110 lesson plans, with clear instructions for setting up and carrying out the activities, full-colour photographs of the games in action, and advice to develop teachers’ skills and pedagogy. This book supports a child’s physical development and coordination, and provides countless opportunities to learn how to be fair, responsible, courageous and kind. Fully aligned to the National Curriculum.
- How to Move & Learn. An Evidence-Based Guide to Embedding Physically Active Learning in Your School (Bryn Llewellyn, Ian Homes and Richard Allman)
How to Move & Learn: An evidence-based guide to embedding physically active learning in your school is a practical guidebook that provides primary school teachers with the know-how and confidence to embed more movement-based approaches into their teaching and learning.
- Inclusive PE for SEND Children: A Practical Guide for Teachers (Faith Newton)
Through case studies, stories, evidence, and experience teachers will:
- Learn more about the challenge that PE presents to students with SEND
- Be inspired to change their practice and the culture of PE at their school
- Be equipped with over 100 whole class strategies to make PE inclusive for students with the following conditions and neurotypes:
- Autism, Attention Deficit Disorder, Colour Blindness, Developmental Coordination Disorder / Dyspraxia, Dyscalculia, Dyslexia, Hypermobility, Pathological Demand Avoidance and Sensory Processing Difficulties.
SECONDARY PE
- Safe Practice: In Physical Education, School Sport and Physical Activity (Published by AfPE in partnership with UK Coaching)
Published every four years, this is the essential reference and developmental tool that offers up-to-date advice across PESSPA, to help teachers, coaches and school governors protect their students and themselves from potential risks across both the curriculum and extra-curricular activities.
- Is PE in Crisis? Leading Meaningful Change in Physical Education (Lee Sullivan)
This book encapsulates the journey of one head of PE in his pursuit of trying to design, implement and evaluate a more effective approach towards physical education curriculum design, promote inclusive pedagogies and a holistic approach to assessment.
- Happiness Factories: A success-driven approach to holistic Physical Education (Phil Mathe)
Happiness Factories is the story of the author’s career in PE, reflecting on the lessons he has learned, with the successes (and failures) along the way. It presents an alternative view of what modern, meaningful PE can look like and encourages all PE teachers, regardless of their unique context, to reflect on their own practice and the emphasis of the provision they give to their pupils.
- Wanna Teach PE? An A – Z for the Next Generation of Aspiring Teachers (Ben Holden)
Wanna Teach PE is an A-Z guide to PE teaching. From the sports hall to the field, from extra-curricular to examinations, PE teaching is one of the broadest, most challenging, yet most rewarding roles within education, and Wanna Teach PE provides insight into the realisms behind being a PE teacher.
- Cooperative Learning in Physical Education and Physical Activity. A Practical Introduction (Ben Dyson / Ashley Casey)
Cooperative Learning in Physical Education and Physical Activity will help teachers and students of physical education to master research-informed strategies for teaching. By using school-based and real-world examples, it allows teachers to quickly understand the educational benefits of Cooperative Learning.
- Complete Guide to Sport Education (Daryl Siedentop / Peter A Hastie / Hans Van Der Mars)
Through the books Sport Education model, students develop sport skills, grow in leadership and responsibility and learn the nonplaying roles of the sport experience.
- Inclusive PE for SEND Children: A Practical Guide for Teachers (Faith Newton)
Through case studies, stories, evidence, and experience teachers will:
- Learn more about the challenge that PE presents to students with SEND
- Be inspired to change their practice and the culture of PE at their school
- Be equipped with over 100 whole class strategies to make PE inclusive for students with the following conditions and neurotypes:
- Autism, Attention Deficit Disorder, Colour Blindness, Developmental Coordination Disorder / Dyspraxia, Dyscalculia, Dyslexia, Hypermobility, Pathological Demand Avoidance and Sensory Processing Difficulties.
Kit Rackley – Secondary Geography
This is an impossible question! So I’m going to have to go for a personal opinion of one of my favourites. That is ‘Disaster By Choice’ by Ilan Kelman. The book focuses on the human element of disasters and how they occur due to our choice to live in an area, our vulnerability and sometimes our arrogance in the face of nature. Kelman discusses a range of hazards and how human decisions influence whether these hazards become disasters, looking at all aspects of disaster and the key players that influence impacts. You can listen to Ilan and I have a conversation for the Reteach podcast. Also, for more reading recommendations, I strongly recommend you check out Reteach Geography (free registration required)
Lynn Welsh – Secondary Art and Design
Now, this is a bit leftfield, but the book I recommend reading to all my trainees is “Running the Room’ by Tom Bennett. That’s not an Art book I hear you say, and of course you are right, but the challenges we face as Art teachers with organisation, with routines, with developing positive cultures, and managing a space where 30 teenagers move around, often using a wide variety of messy materials is quite different to many other subjects.
Routines and relationships in particular, can make or break our classroom environment and unless we get these right, the potential for chaos is never far away.
Tom Bennett’s clear, no nonsense writing style is easily accessible and helps trainees strategise, to consider where things could go wrong and plan appropriately before the pupils enter the room. His tips and suggestions, based on the expertise from great teachers around the world really supports trainees in the early days to understand how to plan for, manage and maintain a safe, calm and happy classroom.
Dr Linda Whitworth – Primary Religious Education
Anyway, my recommendation is ‘Teaching Religious Education Creatively’ edited by Sally Elton-Chalcraft (2015) It is part of the Routledge Learning to Teach in the Primary School Series. There will be a new edition out soon- it’s currently being proof-read before going to press. It has some good contributors in it. The new one is going to be right up to date with references to the most recent developments. I didn’t write for the first edition, but I have co-authored a chapter for the second edition coming out. But I’m not recommending it for that reason!
Kate Percival – Primary Languages
Rather than recommend a book related to primary languages pedagogy (many of which can be found on the NASBTT Primary Languages TEMZ page I am going to recommend the book ‘If the World Were a Village’ by David J Smith and Shelagh Armstrong which can be used in the classroom and which both children, and adults, will find fascinating. This book manages to present the world as a village of 100 people and we soon discover that 22 of them speak a Chinese dialect and 17 cannot read or write. We find out about people’s religions, education and living standards. A great place to start when discussing the concept of global citizens and a great link with language and culture.
Sara Davidson – Secondary Languages
There are many excellent books on language teaching out there, but the one book I recommend to our trainee teachers as they are starting out is The Language Teacher Toolkit by Steve Smith & Gianfranco Conti. Smith & Conti are experienced modern language teachers and researchers, and the book is very balanced, not pushing one particular method. It is an excellent and comprehensive overview of all of the considerations you need to have as a language teacher. It is evidence-based and contains sensible and practical pedagogical principles to carry out your language-teaching by. It looks at the different modern language teaching approaches, well-selected research, how to teach the four skills, how to use IT, ideas for activities to use in the classroom and much more. They have published other excellent books and Steve Smith’s website ‘Informed Language Teacher’ allows you the opportunity to investigate some of the research further, but this is the book to start with!
Julia Mackintosh – Primary Geography
The book ‘Teaching Primary Geography’ by Stephen Scoffham and Paula Owens is, I think, a great book to purchase at the start of your teaching career. Aimed at teachers in KS1 and KS2, it provides the non-specialist with a succinct overview of primary geography, identifying features of good practice and advice to support lesson planning, including key questions to help you to reflect on your lesson design and content. Most importantly, this book provides beginning teachers an overview for more than 30 geography topics that are linked to the National Curriculum. Each chapter provides key subject knowledge needed to teach each topic, identifies potential misconceptions and provides lesson plans that can be adapted for individual classes Online resources are available to accompany the book.
Scoffham, S. and Owens, P. (2017) Teaching Primary Geography. London: Bloomsbury
For trainees or teachers that wish to delve more deeply into the subject, I would highly recommend ‘Understanding and Teaching Primary Geography’ by Simon Catling and Tessa Willy. The aim of the book, the authors state, is to open teachers’ eyes to a fuller sense of what geography is about and how they can contribute confidently and effectively to the learning of their pupils. Chapters focus on key topics, including: understanding places, physical and human geography, environmental sustainability, learning outside the classroom, global issues, citizenship and social justice. The inclusion of research summaries, practical and reflective tasks and examples from the classroom provide a rich range of information to develop primary teachers’ subject knowledge of geography in the primary phase.
Catling, S. and Willy, T. (2018) Understanding and teaching primary geography (2nd Ed.) London: SAGE
If you have any questions you would like to ask our experts, then please contact us.