Life doing Primary PGCE

Hello everyone!

I am about to start a PGCE in Primary Education in September. I'm very excited to start now! I keep on hearing stories that the year is going to be the hardest year of my life. I'm really looking forward to it. However I want to organise my time so that I am efficient. I would like to hear past students' schedules, did you ever have time for a weekend off?

Thanks,
Chris :smile:

Reply 1

Pierson

Yes, during universities weeks, I had a number of weekends free as we were only occasionally given extensive work to do at home. During placements, I didn't but could have had a few weekends free if I had managed my time better. For example, we had to submit weekly reflections by Sunday evening; some people got theirs done during the week but I usually left them until Sunday. I tended to do very little work on Saturdays and then crammed a lot in on Sundays which wasn't the best thing to do but after five very busy days, it was quite difficult to find the motivation to work on Saturdays.

Workloads vary between schools - some schools simply expect staff to do a lot more than others - and, similarly, workloads vary between PGCE courses. You may be given more to do at home than I did but you probably won't have a Sunday deadline for reflections etc. Rest assured, though, that you should nonetheless have some free time!