Dear colleague,

 

I am getting in touch to ask if your school would be interested in participating in the University of Edinburgh’s one-day visits for MSc TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) and MSc Language Education programme students. In recent years, schools in Edinburgh and the surrounding areas have been paid to receive Moray House students from these programmes to visit and observe classes in their schools. We are very appreciative of this as it has been a great success over the years.

 

This year Moray House are looking to place approximately 250 TESOL students and 75 Language Education students in primary and secondary schools for a one-day visit at the end of October/early November.  Given the large number of students, we are looking for as many schools to participate as possible.

 

Would your school be willing to participate in offering visits of this kind to these students?

 

During the visits, groups of student teachers observe lessons within a primary class, or in one or a few subject areas within secondary schools, particularly Modern Languages (any language) and English. This is so that they can see for themselves an experience of teaching in primary or secondary schools in Scotland. It is a classroom observation so our students do not participate in classes (unless asked to), or disrupt schedules within schools, but sit at the back of classrooms and observe good practice.

 

The students would come fully prepared and are fully informed about the protocol within Scottish schools. Each student will attend school for one full day.

 

The dates scheduled for the school visits are as follows:

• Monday 27th October to Thursday 30th October – MSc Language Education
• Monday 3rd November to Thursday 4th November – MSc TESOL

 

Each student will only attend a school for one day within the date ranges given above.

 

If your school is able to host students for one or more full school days within either of the date ranges given above, then please let us know by emailing mhses.schoolvisits@ed.ac.uk.

 

The University arranges for the students to visit schools in groups and require a minimum of two students in each school. Offers that schools have made in previous years have ranged from two students upwards in a very small primary school, to several per class in a larger primary school, up to 20 or more students in large secondary schools.

 

We have established robust procedures to ensure that the student visits comply with national guidance to schools, and will share further details ahead of the visits. Students will follow a code of conduct that covers areas including in-school behaviour and health and safety.

 

If you would like to participate in this opportunity, please reply to mhses.schoolvisits@ed.ac.uk by Thursday 11th September, with information on the dates that you can participate and the maximum number of students that could visit your school on those dates. If you are unable to participate, we would be grateful if you could also reply to let us know.

 

If you require any additional information about these visits, please get in touch.

 

We look forward to hearing from you.