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TeacherNet - glossary of teaching terms Category: Education Date & country: 14/12/2007, UK Words: 288

PAT
Professional Association of Teachers.

Pathfinder
A project which is testing out a Government policy over a defined period prior to its full implementation.

PDF
A file that has captured all the elements of a printed document as an electronic image that you can view, navigate, print or forward to someone else. It is created using Adobe Acrobat software. Acrobat Reader is needed to view and use the files.

Performance Tables
The Department for Education and Skills publishes comparative secondary and 16 to 18 performance tables each year. The tables report achievements in public examinations and vocational qualifications in secondary schools and Further Education sector colleges. Primary school performance tables are published by local authorities and report the achieve…

PGCE
Postgraduate Certificate of Education — postgraduate-level Initial Teacher Training qualification.

Physical Education.
Personal Education Plan (PEP) PEPs are schemes developed for young individuals in public care, designed to support their education.

PIN
Parents Information Network.

Plenary
The time at the end of a lesson in which the teacher finds out what children have learnt and re-emphasises the main points of the lesson.

PMLD
Profound and Multiple Learning Difficulties.

Pre-school playgroups
These generally take children between the ages of three and five and most offer half-day sessions. Usually non-profit making and managed by volunteers and parents. There must be at least one adult for every eight children and at least half of the adults must be qualified leaders or assistants.

Private nursery schools
These take children between the ages of two and five and offer half or full-day sessions and some stay open in the school holidays. There must be at least one adult for every 13 children and at least half of the staff must be qualified teachers.

Prospectus
A school's prospectus is a brochure containing useful facts and figures, which the governing body must publish each year for parents and prospective parents. Ministers set minimum requirements for content, so that parents can easily make comparisons between different schools. Copies will be available at the school for reference or free of charge to…

PSB
Potential Schools Budget.

PSE
Personal and Social Education.

PSHE
Personal, Social and Health Education.

PTA
Parent Teacher Association.

PTR
Pupil Teacher Ratio.

QAA
Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education.

QCA
Qualifications and Curriculum Authority.

QDC
Qualifications Data Collection Steering Group.

QTS
Qualified Teacher Status The professional status you need to obtain to teach in state maintained schools in England and Wales. QTS is normally awarded after successful completion of an Initial Teacher Training course.

QUIET
Quality in Education and Training Associates.

REEF
Race Employment and Education Forum.

Remodelling
Remodelling is set out in a national agreement signed by the Secretary of State that aims to reform the school workforce. It is about giving teachers more time, extra support and renewed leadership in order to reduce teacher workload, raise standards, increase job satisfaction and improve the status of the profession.

RISS
Register of Independent Schools.

RTF
A file format that lets you exchange text files between different word processors in different operating systems. For example, you could create a file using Microsoft Word 97 in Windows 95, save it as an RTF file and send it to someone who uses WordPerfect 6.0 on Windows 3.1

SAS
Special Agreement School.

SCAA
School Curriculum and Assessment Authority.

SCITT
School- Centred Initial Teacher Training School-based teacher training course leading to Qualified Teacher Status.

SCOTVEC
Scottish Vocational Educational Qualification equivalent to BTEC and Advanced GNVQ.

SEED
Scottish Executive Education Department.

Self-governing schools
Scottish schools which are equivalent to grant-maintained schools in England.

SEN
Special Educational Needs. This denotes any child that has been identified as having some form of educational need either as a result of learning difficulty or if they are deemed as particularly bright or gifted. These children receive additional support either from within the school or outside agencies. Consult the DfES booklet SEN: A Guide for Pa…

SENCO
Special Educational Needs Coordinator.

SEO
Society of Education Officers.

SHA
Secondary Heads Association.

SHEFC
Scottish Higher Education Funding Council.

SI
Statutory Instrument.

SIMS
Schools Information Management Systems.

SLC
Student Loans Company.

SLD
Severe Learning Difficulties.

SLDD
Students with Learning Difficulty and/or Disability.

SMT
Senior Management Team.

SOC
Schools Organisation Committee.

SOEID
Scottish Office Education and Industry Department.

SOLACE
Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and Senior Managers.

Special Schools
State schools in England and Wales which are provided by local education authorities for certain children with special educational needs.

Specialist Schools
This type of school includes technology, languages, sports and art colleges operating in England.

Specialist Schools Programme
Additional funding enables secondary schools to develop strengths in a particular subject area, supported by local industry and in partnership with local schools and the wider community to share resources and expertise, while still delivering a National Curriculum-based education.

SQA
Scottish Qualifications Agency.

SRS
Safer Routes to School. A government initiative to make the environment safer to encourage children to walk or cycle to school, thereby avoiding school car runs. Schools and local education authorities work with local community and transport planners to facilitate safer routes to school.

SSD
Social Services Department.

SSSS
Secondary Subject Shortage Scheme.

SSTA
Scottish Secondary Teachers' Association.

State Nursery Schools
These take children from the age of three or four and are open during school term time and normally offer five half-day sessions a week. There must be at least one adult for every 13 children. Staff are qualified teachers and assistants.

State Schools
Otherwise known as publicly funded schools and attended by over 90 per cent of pupils. Parents do not pay any fees. Scottish state schools are maintained and controlled by the local education authority.

STRB
School Teachers Review Body.

Study Support
Voluntary learning activity outside normal lessons which aims to improve children's motivation, build their self-esteem and help them to become more effective learners.

SUPERCLASS
Subject Classification.

Sure Start
A new, innovative cross-departmental strategy to improve services for children under four and their families in disadvantaged areas. Over the next three years it will support the development of at least 250 local programmes across England. These programmes will involve parents and carers as much as possible.

SVQs
Scottish Vocational Qualifications.

TC
Technology Colleges.

TCT
Technology College Trust.

Teacher Assessment
A formal assessment made by a teacher when your child is aged 7, 11 and 14. Used alongside the national tests to judge a child's educational progress.

TEC
Training and Enterprise Council.

TES
Times Educational Supplement.

The National Assembly for Wales
The body responsible for education policy in Wales.

THES
Times Higher Education Supplement.

TPS
Teacher's Pension Scheme.

TQA
Teaching Quality Assessment.

TTA
Teacher Training Agency, Responsible for raising standards in schools in England by attracting able and committed people to teaching and by improving the quality of teacher training.

UCAS
Universities and Colleges Admissions Service — central agency for processing applications for undergraduate courses including degree level initial teacher training courses (BEd, BA/BSc with qualified teacher status).

UCLES
University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate.

UFC
Universities Funding Council.

Ufl
University for Industry.

UKCOSA
UK Council for Overseas Student Affairs.

UNESCO
United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation.

URL
Uniform Resource Locator — the addressing system for the World Wide Web.

VC
Vice Chancellor.

VDU
Visual Display Unit.

VET
Vocational and Educational Training.

Voluntary aided school
Schools in England and Wales which are maintained by the Local Education Authority, with a foundation (generally religious) which appoints most of the governing body. The governing body is the admissions authority.

Voluntary controlled school
Schools in England and Wales which are maintained by the local authority, with a foundation (generally religious) which appoints some — but not most — of the governing body. The LA is the admissions authority.

Voluntary grammar schools
Grant-maintained, integrated schools in Northern Ireland which take both Protestant and Roman Catholic pupils

Voluntary Maintained Schools
Schools in Northern Ireland which are mainly managed by the Catholic Church.

VTC
Virtual Teacher Centre. A service for schools professionals providing news, support for professional development and the facility to search resources across the National Grid for Learning.

Website
A related collection of Web files that includes a beginning file called a home page. A company or individual tells you how to get to their website by giving you the address of their home page, from which you can access all the other pages on their sites. Most websites are also linked to several other relevant sites.

WWW — World Wide Web
Technical definition: all the resources and users on the Internet that are using the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) computer language. A broader definition, from the organisation WWW Consortium, co-founded by Web inventor Tim Berners-Lee, is: 'The World Wide Web is the universe of network-accessible information, an embodiment of human knowledge…