Recently the Faculty welcomed some visiting lecturers (and their class teacher!) to discuss learning about evolution with our primary teacher trainees.

Four Year 6 students from Buckden Primary School took part, explaining what they have learned about evolution as part of their science curriculum. They were supporting a lecture given by Rosie Burns, a former Faculty of Education PGCE trainee who is now their class teacher. All involved learned a great deal about teaching and learning in this important subject.

Newly published book Empathy, Emotion and Education by author and Faculty Teaching Associate Helen Demetriou explores the construct of empathy and its connection with education.

Charting literature on the origins and evolution of the concept of empathy, Helen examines the multifaceted nature of empathy and the external and internal influences behind this concept.

Find out more and purchase as ebook or hardback from publishers Palgrave Macmillan

eBook ISBN: 978-1-137-54844-3
Hardcover ISBN: 978-1-137-54843-6

Fiona Maine has been successful in her application to the Horizon 2020 EU Research and Innovation programme and awarded €4.4million to conduct research exploring the cultural literacy learning of young people in Europe through their responses to visual texts.

DIALLS (Dialogue and Argumentation for cultural Literacy Learning in Schools) is a three year project starting June 2018, working with Early Years, Primary and Secondary schools across Europe.

A one-day conference celebrating the work of Professor Christopher Colcloughwill take place at the University of Cambridge on 9 March. You can find futher information about the event and sign up on Eventbrite.

• Education, Psychology and Learning : focusing on education from a psychological perspective; exploring human development and education in a variety of social and cultural environments.


• Education, Policy and International Development :considering historical and contemporary discussions concerning these areas, and education’s role in economic and social change.


• Education, English, Drama and the Arts : combining the study of English literature, and the option of studying practical Drama, with key issues in education, such as debates around creativity, learning and culture.

To celebrate her 25 years of service, Angela was invited to a prestigious reception with other long serving members of the University and was presented with a certificate by the Vice Chancellor, Professor Stephen Toope.

Following the huge success of November's open day, the Faculty is delighted to be hosting a second PGCE open afternoon on Friday 26 January 2018.

Prospective applicants will have the opportunity to look round the Faculty, attend a course presentation and meet members of our teaching and admissions teams.

Find out more about the event and how to register.

Congratulations to Dawn Piper, ex PGCE and MEd student, whose outstanding teaching has been recognised in two national awards.

First, Dawn won The Association for Language Learning Secondary Teacher of the Year award for 2017. In addition, this year the German Embassy presented her with The Peter Boaks prize for excellence in German teaching.

Dawn is currently Head of Languages at a school in Derby, and credits the "inspirational teaching" at Cambridge as key to her continuing career success.

Delegates from China's Peking University have made a visit this November to the Education Reform and Innovation Team at the begining of a long-term cooperation for Early Years Education.

The University of Cambridge Faculty of Education wishes to promote further academic and research links with the China Center for Strategic Studies at Peking University, a partnership which was initiated in April 2017.

The focus on this visit is to develop kindergarten head teachers and early year professionals' understanding of education in the UK as well as surrounding policy.

This visit consisted of lectures in the Faculty as well as visits to local schools looking at the importance of indoor/outdoor environments as well as 'physical' areas of learning and integrated practices. This will be followed up with a research and scoping visit of the ERI team to Beijing and Jinan in January 2018, before moving onto a long-term agreement with regular visits and interaction.

The ERI team is grateful for the help of PhD Students from the Faculty of Education that have assisted with translation and interpretation.

The Culture, Politics and Global Justice (CPGJ) Research Cluster invites Staff and Students at the Faculty of Education to attend the Panel on "Choreographies of Class: Elite Formation in a Transnational World”

Presenters Prof. Jane Kenway, from the University of Melbourne, Australia; and Prof. Debbie Epstein, University of Roehampton.

Response: Professor Marilyn Strathern, Anthropology, Cambridge.

The Panel will take place at DMB Room GS5, from 3.00- 5.00. A wine reception will follow. All welcome. No need to RSVP.

Add this event to your list on talks.cam

The 'Get Into Teaching' campaign have recently released a TV advert featuring teachers speaking about their reasons for choosing teaching as a career. We are excited to report that one of the teachers featured is former Cambridge PGCE Geography trainee and current MEd student Kate Stockings.

Kate is now in her third year of teaching, and is already in her second year as Head of Geography.In addition to featuring in the TV advert, Kate has written a fantastic blog post for the the Get Into Teaching campaign giving advice to those who are considering a career as a teacher. This comes at a fantastic time, as the application process for teacher training programmes, including our PGCE courses, has just opened. In her blog, Kate talks about the wonderfully varied nature of life as a teacher and the fact that she thrives on learning new
things every day. She also highlights the great opportunities for career progression that the teaching profession offers.

If you want to hear more you can follow Kate on Twitter, a platform which she regularly uses to share innovative teaching ideas and engage with others in the profession.

Visit our PGCE pages to find out more about our PGCE courses.

Volume 4 of the Cambridge Open-Review Educational Research e-Journal(CORERJ) is finally live!

CORERJ is the Faculty of Education's online student journal. It forms a platform for students to share ongoing or completed work with peers and and the wider academic community. This year, we are particularly delighted to publish our first ever Special Paper - an interview with Professor Susan Robertson (Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge), on publishing in academic journals.

This week we welcome a new cohort of graduate students to the Faculty of Education. The FERSA blog has recently published two blog posts with relevant advice for new MPhil students and PhD students.

The FERSA blog editors, Tyler Shores, Stine Ravnå and CJ Rauch say:

“Embarking on graduate studies is exciting, but also somewhat daunting. We therefore hope that the FERSA blog can be a useful resource for new students, offering insights, ideas and advice on various aspects of the graduate research journey".