PGCE really that difficult...?

It depends what subject you do - that might sound controversial but honestly some subjects are more intensive than others in terms of marking and planning.
For example the maths department at my school have lessons preplanned and use textbooks. They tick and flick for marking and only mark assessments heavily. MFL have preplanned lessons but have to correct every spelling so marking is awful...

I teach English and did a PGDipEd at the University of Birmingham and to be honest didn't find the course itself difficult. What I did find difficult (and still do) is the high expectations for heavy marking and creating lessons from scratch with very little contribution from school. We have no planning done for us and are simply told "this term you need to teach creative writing ready for this assessment". The rest is up to us!

What is worthwhile considering, as another poster has suggested, is not how difficult the PGCE will be, but how much time you are willing to contribute for the rest of your life...

My school has high expectations for intense, extended marking. That means I spend at least 4/5 hours on one set of books (that's only 10 minutes per book) because we see our classes for 4 hours each week and in English they write loads even when you tell them they don't need to! I teach 6 classes and my school expects books to be marked every two weeks... That's a lot of time spent marking! There are ways to make it quicker - I used to spend 20 minutes to half an hour on each book - but with English (and other language subjects) you will always have this problem.

I now plan very quickly so don't tend to plan at home. My hours at weekends and in holidays are spent trawling through essays!

It's worth finding out more about your subject to see where you will be spending your time

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