Who is the book written for? The PGCE Survival Guide is written for any trainee teacher, to provide them with the real tips and advice so often wanted during their teacher training. It is equally as applicable to Primary and Secondary trainees. Early feedback has shown it is also popular with those invovled in teacher training especially school based mentors. Why was the book written? Tim decided to try to put together the PGCE Survival Guide as he remembered the anxiety waiting for his PGCE to start and how much he wished he could find lots of first hand experience and tips from people who had ‘been there and done that’ and how useful these tips could have been throughout his PGCE year. This book is his attempt at answering this wish for trainee teachers and also to give something back to the education community! How was the book written? The book contains a mixture of content, but the most powerful are 250 pieces of advice and tips sent by the education community on twitter through the hashtag #pgcetips. These tips were combined with comprehensive sections containing more detailed advice on information on all elements of the PGCE and 9 leading educationalists and teachers contributed articles to these sections. What makes the book different? The PGCE Survival Guide provides real, practical tips, advice and information selected specifically for trainee teachers. It is unique as the book was 'crowd sourced' (i.e. contributed to by many different people) and contains contributions from over 100 teachers. What's LuLu? LuLu is a self publishing service, which enables authors/editors to make their content available without all the usual hassle of finding a publisher etc. LuLu prints books on demand, meaning if you purchase a copy of the PGCE Survival Guide it will be professionally printed and bound after your order. Books produced by LuLu look like any other book you may buy with the same quality and professional finish. LuLu also hosts the free download version of the book which is available as an instant download, free of charge. Why the strange price? If you choose to buy the book, it will cost you £6.91 - which is a rather odd price! This is simply because LuLu charges per page (and then adds their commission etc on top)and this charge is passed onto you, resulting in the strange figure! Can I buy the book through Amazon / In my book shop? No- it's only available on LuLu. To make it available on Amazon etc (which would be great) entails getting an ISBN number which adds around £2 to the cost of the book- add this to Amazon's/The Book Stores commission/mark up and the book would end up costing around £14. We believe £6.91 is much more affordable (and of course, the free download is even better than that- but then you don't have a physical book to pick up and refer to!) Why are you offering a free download? Lots of content in the book was 'crowd sourced' from the education community on twitter. It would therefore be unfair and complicated to charge and make money! Plus- we want as many people to benefit from the tips and advice contained in the book as possible! |