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Student at the Open University
Open University
Milton Keynes
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Open degrees...

Hi everyone,
I'm considering starting a course in February '17 with the OU.( don't want to register last minute so thought I would skip Octobers registration)
Long term I want to become a primary school teacher... Possibly secondary if it felt right.
Anyway I was wondering whether open degrees are recognised in regards to a teacher training course after I graduate...
I'm not entirely sure what I want to study, at first it was going to be sports or education studies, but I thought it be better I have curriculum subjects for teaching, so I was thinking of doing 50/50 in history and science as they are both subjects I enjoy...
Do your guys reckon this would be okay, or would I be better going down one particular route?
For level one study I was thinking:
Questions in science S111 and The arts past and present AA100.

For level two:
Human biology sk277 and one other science subject as this is only worth 30 credits (any ideas which one I should put in?)

And

Exploring History medieval to modern 1400-1900 a200

Then for level 3

Biological science- genes to species- s317
And
Europe 1914-1989 war, piece, modernity a327

Ps any reviews of these modules would be welcome...

I do apologise for the essay but any help would be hugely appreciated.

Thanks

Cairo :smile:
As far as I am aware you can't become a teacher without having a degree. An open degree is fine if you can show you had a specific route. Like people who mix business and IT modules to tailor their degree to their career.

Following your route you would not have a specific degree, it would be 180 credits of history and 180 of science.(or something like that) I'm not sure if they would accept it as in theory its only half a degree of each.

I'm not 100% on that but from when I looked at it for myself it seemed liked there was no getting away from having a degree in your chosen subject. The get into teaching people were really helpful when I was thinking about it. You should give them a ring. :yy:

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Student at the Open University
Open University
Milton Keynes
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I can't comment on the teaching side of things - it would be a good idea to check into that before committing to a particular programme.

In terms of the Open Degree, SK277 will start its final presentation this October - they usually replace modules with a revamped version so it may well be replaced with something very similar, but you might want to check with them. A200 is also going to be on its final presentation.

The pathway you're suggesting for the history side of things looks like it would work, but on the science side SDK100 or K101 are suggested prior to doing SK277 (although they may just not have listed S111 there yet as it's new; it might do the job just as well), and S317 suggests that they expect you to be familiar with the content of S294 and S295 (both 30 credit modules, so you might want to think about including one it then in your plan), and possibly also S141 (or whatever replaces it; it's also at the end of its run) so you might want to find out how strongly they recommend people do that sequence of modules. You can effectively si what you like, but obviously if you jump to stuff at level 3 you haven't worked up to, you may find the work much more difficult.

Just a couple of things to think about - it's quite helpful to do a bit of fantasy degree planning at this stage, so you can see possible different routes to your end goal. (I had a spreadsheet!)
I think your proposed degree is probably fine for most PGCEs, but secondary schools might think you lack sufficient subject knowledge - especially if you want to teach history (the AA100 module contains very little history). The OU has put together a helpful guide for prospective teachers, well worth a read: www2.open.ac.uk/students/_data/documents/careers/becoming-a-teacher.pdf
Reply 4
Thanks for all of your replies, I guess it's a good thing that I'm not planning on enrolling until 2017, there's a lot I'll need to look into.
I'll have to speak to the open uni directly and some pgce providers directly to see what they recommend.
Primary is where I would love to be teaching so hopefully they will like a mix of subjects, but we shall see.
Thanks again everyone.

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