At the start of the PGCE course, I raised the question whether it would be necessary to buy the latest edition of “Becoming a Teacher: Issues in Secondary Teaching” or whether an old edition – or none at all – would suffice. This book was recommended for the course generally and the Professional Policy Studies (PPS) lectures in particular, and the old edition that I bought via eBay has been perfectly adequate. The new edition has some updated content and new chapters, but as far as I am aware, these were not referenced in this year’s lectures. My advice would be to save yourself some money and buy an old edition or borrow a copy from the library.
The library at King’s is very good and I’ve not had a problem getting the books that I’ve needed. I did however buy a couple of old – but still useful – Advanced Level Computer Science books to brush up my knowledge, and I may use them again if I need to teach this subject.
