Thank you for agreeing to host a UCD PME/MSc student in your school. We are very grateful for your continued support and cooperation in preparing the next generation of second level teachers for Irish schools.

Please note the following important information:

UCD PME/MSc students must complete a minimum of 4.5 and a maximum of 8 hours per week of teaching over the duration of their school placement. We encourage our students to engage fully in the life of the school and they are required to be physically present in schools on a minimum of three days.

Students are available for their placement in the UCD Autumn trimester as follows:

-Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays - available for school in the morning and may be required in UCD for mandatory lectures from 2 pm depending on their subject methods
-Tuesday - not available to school at all as there are mandatory lectures in UCD all day
-Friday - available to school all day as there are no lectures in UCD

Please note: students should not be required to engage in school activities when they are scheduled for mandatory tutorials and lectures in UCD. Full timetable will be available in late August and students should share their timetable with you at this point.

You may find it helpful to familiarise yourself with the Teaching Council's Guidelines on School Placement: https://www.teachingcouncil.ie/Website/en/_fileupload/Teacher-Education/School-Placement/Guidelines-on-School-Placement.pdf 

The UCD School of Education School Placement Handbook will provide further information and clarification on the PME programme.

We request that students are assigned a maximum of ONE TY group if possible, as due to the nature of TY, classes can be disrupted at short notice, thus impinging on observations and class contact time.

It has come to our attention that in some cases student teachers are left with full responsibility for CBAs and we request that expectations around this are clarified with students before they commence their placement.

Thank you once again for your support and we would like to wish you, and your whole school community, well for the forthcoming academic year.