PGCE - Current Students Thread

My mentor left me with some pretty scathing remarks when I finished first placement on Friday...

My "personal appearance" apparently wasn't up to scratch the whole time I was there - I was told to come in "comfortable clothes - tracksuit and trainers or jeans or something, just don't show too much flesh" - so I wore tracksuit bottoms as I was in a school where things often got very messy and I just don't have the money to be replacing jeans and smart trousers all the time. Also, in tracksuit bottoms, I can move around more easily so that I can be more involved with the activities - I wasn't just dressing like a tramp out of laziness, the clothes were always clean and never offensive or even too detailed. The whole time, not one single person told me anything about my attire, if they had I would have changed it.

Now I'm really worried this is all going to go in my final report about my professionalism not being good enough :/


There was other stuff too, literally the only positive she could give me was that my class teacher liked having me in the classroom... Hopefully I get a bit luckier in my next placement, I've just got to find it first :/

My mentor left me with some pretty scathing remarks when I finished first placement on Friday...

My "personal appearance" apparently wasn't up to scratch the whole time I was there - I was told to come in "comfortable clothes - tracksuit and trainers or jeans or something, just don't show too much flesh" - so I wore tracksuit bottoms as I was in a school where things often got very messy and I just don't have the money to be replacing jeans and smart trousers all the time. Also, in tracksuit bottoms, I can move around more easily so that I can be more involved with the activities - I wasn't just dressing like a tramp out of laziness, the clothes were always clean and never offensive or even too detailed. The whole time, not one single person told me anything about my attire, if they had I would have changed it.

Now I'm really worried this is all going to go in my final report about my professionalism not being good enough :/

What school was that? I've been in a fair share of schools including SEN schools and everyone has always worn smart clothes or prescribed uniform (unless perhaps you teach secondary P.E?) I teach nursery and get utterly filthy every day but I wouldn't dream of going into school in tracksuit. What was everyone else wearing? I do think it's rather mean to not tell you and then pick you up on it. It's something that could have been sorted on day 2, she can't really blame you for her lack of action!

Usually the final report is all positive and they would just leave negative things off, like a reference. I would definitely be more careful about this in the future though as it is amongst the standards and you don't want something as silly as this stopping you from passing.

If everyone else was wearing tracksuits then I would dispute this with my tutor, a friend of mine got unfair feedback from an awful school she was at and my mentor discarded those parts of it. If they weren't then I would use this is a lesson and look at what everyone else has on and wear similar things. The first day of placement it's always a good idea to a little smarter than usual to scope it out!

Hi,

I dressed very smartly on the first day and was told to make sure I wore whatever was comfortable in future. That day my outfit (£40 worth of clothes) was ruined - I cannot afford £40 outfits every time something goes flying at work - so I looked around at other teachers and all were in a mixture of attire ranging from tracksuit bottoms to jeans to leggings to trousers - I asked the lady who showed me around the school if tracksuit and trainers would be okay and she said "yes, absolutely, just make sure you're comfortable and not showing too much skin" - naturally when I go to mainstream there will be less chance of my clothes getting knackered from flying non-washable liquids and I will be dressed smartly

Week 2 at second placement - Cannot do anything right in lessons, tired, not enough hours in the day to get even half the paperwork done let alone the full lot, travelling taking 1 hour each way, moaned at if textbooks or powerpoints used at all in lessons......I'd love to be able to think I could get to the end of this course and get the qualification but It just is not going to happen.

Why oh why am I still on this nightmare of a course?

I know some schools do not like text books, and I am not a fan of text book heavy lessons, - but how on earth are you supposed to impart visual and written examples without either textbooks or powerpoint? Interpretive dance? Smoke Signals?! That sounds insane!

Your whole life gets taken over. On the PGCE, you are expected to spend up to 4 hours to plan a 1 hour lesson, and with 10 lessons a week that is 40 hours that need to be found from somewhere just for planning.

You aren't expected to spend up to 4 hours to plan one lesson, especially not the unobserved lessons. You will learn that it simply isn't worth refining the resources into perfection, and more importantly you will learn that you cannot actually spend that long on planning when your teaching load increases. You'll end up tiring yourself out and that isn't good for yourself or for your lessons!

Yes, I know you cannot spend that long planning on a full teaching timetable - this is why I said "On the PGCE"! Im my view the workload is too big. I cannot spend that much time doing it - 5 hours teaching a week then yes, you can fit it in just about, but now knocked up to 10 hours a week it is impossible.

And even if you did manage to work all hours god sends, and turn up and teach without falling to sleep, you still get the constant feedback reminding you of how much needs changing (not good enough) and different teachers expecting different things from you.

I know exactly what you are experiencing. I nearly quit the PGCE for exactly the reason you mentioned at the end. People giving me different feedback, different routines and some pretty unprofessional ways of giving feedback. But it will get better!

But the 10 lessons * 4 hours prep time isn't right. Even on the PGCE you should not spend that long on a lesson, try to get it down to 2 hours max (even that is quite high). 10 lessons is not a lot even on a PGCE (many providers do 15 hours including my course), the workload is high to make it easier for you. If trainee teachers were given 5 lessons a week the transition to NQT would be much more difficult and there would be an even higher drop out rate. PGCE is a very difficult year, no one finds it easy (even if they give that impression), but the workload is there for a reason

I don't have enough hours to be able to get the planning done, let alone everything else, this on top of now disliking teaching altogether because I can't teach how I want to. It makes for a truly awful experience for people who really wanted to get in the profession, only to find that when they arrived, they were severely limited in the way they were told to teach, and are given an impossible workload for anyone who wants to sleep for more than 1 hour a night.

I don't have enough hours to be able to get the planning done, let alone everything else, this on top of now disliking teaching altogether because I can't teach how I want to. It makes for a truly awful experience for people who really wanted to get in the profession, only to find that when they arrived, they were severely limited in the way they were told to teach, and are given an impossible workload for anyone who wants to sleep for more than 1 hour a night.

I'm sorry this is happening to you, my son is in a similar situation and although has even been given the NQT job for next year he has now decided that his sanity and happiness is more important then to carry on teaching. This PGCE has had a very negative impact on all of us, on him trying to achieve such stupid standards with constantly getting knock backs through feedbacks, on his partner who is trying hard to work through her final uni year and support him and for us as parents, constantly worrying about his health, lack of rest, lack of sleep. I'm sorry but I do not understand the mentality of knock them down, exhaust them and then what, will they really get to be better teachers?

Ive decided against doing my NQT/QTLS year as well, like you said happiness and a stress free life are more apart than a career I dont even want anymore. The good thing is though I had a chat with a careers advisor at my uni and she said having a PGCE on your cv is impressive and does count for something, even if you're doing something totally different than teaching

It might do, but when getting it is such a pain in the neck and a hell of a lot of work combined with being forced to teach in a certain undesirable way, it is better to just get out I reckon

I actually think I might fail this course.

I know what I have to do to improve, but I just don't seem to be able to put it in to action. If that makes any sense.

Everything I was told to do at my first school, now seems to be the wrong thing to do.