The Student Room Group

Secondary English PGCE Applicants

Scroll to see replies

Reply 20
Original post by iloveunicorns
No I have interviews for everything but man met! have they contacted you? I don't know whether to be worried or whether they just have a large amount of applicants... have you got any interviews yet? :smile:


Coincidentally, I had a confirmation of my application at Manchester Met about 12pm today. I was then invited to interview at 7pm. Big relief to see that my application must have made some modicum of sense to the assessor! I am yet to hear from my other two choices though.

Good luck at your interviews and I suspect that if you are offered an interview at Man Met it will be on the 19th, same as mine.
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by Macruiskeen
Coincidentally, I had a confirmation of my application at Manchester Met about 12pm today. I was then invited to interview at 7pm. Big relief to see that my application must have made some modicum of sense to the assessor! I am yet to hear from my other two choices though.

Good luck at your interviews and I suspect if you are offered an interview at Man Met it will be on the 19th, same as mine.


Well done :-) Yeah I got offered an interview too! For the 19th also. Have you been sent any of the details yet?
Reply 22
Original post by iloveunicorns
Well done :-) Yeah I got offered an interview too! For the 19th also. Have you been sent any of the details yet?


No details as of yet! Although I'm going to have to pull a sickie off work to attend the interview!
Original post by Macruiskeen
No details as of yet! Although I'm going to have to pull a sickie off work to attend the interview!


Definitely worth it I think, is Man Met your first choice? We should get some info over the next couple of days apparently, although I am a bit worried as I already have lesson plans for this week to do!
Reply 24
Original post by iloveunicorns
Definitely worth it I think, is Man Met your first choice? We should get some info over the next couple of days apparently, although I am a bit worried as I already have lesson plans for this week to do!


I think I'm split between Manchester Met and Hull. I'm currently in Hull but want to move out of my parent's house if possible as I think I'll be able to concentrate more on the course. I'm just trying to weigh up the cost of it. I know that we are eligible for a small bursary as English trainees on top of student finance.

Is your first choice Manchester?
Original post by Macruiskeen
I think I'm split between Manchester Met and Hull. I want to move out of my parent's house if possible as I think I'll be able to concentrate more on my studies. I'm just trying to weigh up the cost of it. I know that we are eligible for a small bursary as English trainees on top of student finance.


Yeah isn't it 4/5 grand for a 2:1 or 9 for a first? I am not nervous about the interviews themselves, but rather the lessons we have to do!
Reply 26
Original post by iloveunicorns
Yeah isn't it 4/5 grand for a 2:1 or 9 for a first? I am not nervous about the interviews themselves, but rather the lessons we have to do!


It's something like that. What's your lesson going to be on? I actually interviewed unsuccessfully for Teach First earlier this year (I'm glad I didn't get on) and completely died doing my lesson... :colondollar:
Original post by Macruiskeen
It's something like that. What's your lesson going to be on? I actually interviewed unsuccessfully for Teach First earlier this year (I'm glad I didn't get on) and completely died doing my lesson... :colondollar:


Oh god what happened? I feel like the same will happen to me! I have to do a Year 7 Shakespeare lesson and a GCSE English Language lesson! Then explain why I structured my lessons the way I did. Seems so long ago....
Reply 28
Original post by iloveunicorns
Oh god what happened? I feel like the same will happen to me! I have to do a Year 7 Shakespeare lesson and a GCSE English Language lesson! Then explain why I structured my lessons the way I did. Seems so long ago....


Well with Teach First you have two adult who are acting as kids so they pretend not to understand your lesson and try to throw you off. On top of that, I was given quite a challenging lesson title to plan and only had ten minutes to deliver it in. I tried to pack too much in and in too much detail so it didn't go too well.

I think that the Teach First "lesson" will be more of a grilling than a standard PGCE interview though...
Original post by Macruiskeen
Well with Teach First you have two adult who are acting as kids so they pretend not to understand your lesson and try to throw you off. On top of that, I was given quite a challenging lesson title to plan and only had ten minutes to deliver it in. I tried to pack too much in and in too much detail so it didn't go too well.

I think that the Teach First "lesson" will be more of a grilling than a standard PGCE interview though...


Oh that sounds horrific! I don't understand how anyone could do well in that situation. Also I think Teach First is meant to be a particularly challenging route into teaching, I know I couldn't personally hack it.
Reply 30
Original post by iloveunicorns
Oh that sounds horrific! I don't understand how anyone could do well in that situation. Also I think Teach First is meant to be a particularly challenging route into teaching, I know I couldn't personally hack it.


Yeah, it's also looking more for people who would not necessarily consider teaching as a long term career. Most of the people at the interview were slick "business" types, which is not really the personality of your stereotypical English teacher.
Reply 31
Original post by iloveunicorns
Oh that sounds horrific! I don't understand how anyone could do well in that situation. Also I think Teach First is meant to be a particularly challenging route into teaching, I know I couldn't personally hack it.


Hi, have you got your interview information through from MMU? Sounds fairly straightforward compared to the interview for Manchester don't you think?
I'm not sure if they want to see all of our GCSE certificates or just our Maths, English and Science ones...I had a major panic this morning as I had omitted a GCSE from my application! Called the uni and they said it's fine and that it's the Maths, English and Science that really matter.
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by Macruiskeen
Hi, have you got your interview information through from MMU? Sounds fairly straightforward compared to the interview for Manchester don't you think?
I'm not sure if they want to see all of our GCSE certificates or just our Maths, English and Science ones...I had a major panic this morning as I had omitted a GCSE from my application! Called the uni and they said it's fine and that it's the Maths, English and Science that really matter.


Hey yeah I got it through this morning! All of my English, Maths and Science etc. are on the same certificate with the others so I would have no way of avoiding them seeing it anyway! I can't see why they'd be overly interested in the other subjects if you have A Levels and a degree which are obviously the main thing :smile:

Am I right in thinking that they haven't set anything specific in advance for us to plan for the interview? Is it just a case of turning up and doing what we're told? Haha, I think I would have preferred a little bit of a heads up to be honest!
Reply 33
Original post by iloveunicorns
Hey yeah I got it through this morning! All of my English, Maths and Science etc. are on the same certificate with the others so I would have no way of avoiding them seeing it anyway! I can't see why they'd be overly interested in the other subjects if you have A Levels and a degree which are obviously the main thing :smile:

Am I right in thinking that they haven't set anything specific in advance for us to plan for the interview? Is it just a case of turning up and doing what we're told? Haha, I think I would have preferred a little bit of a heads up to be honest!


Yeah haha, it's an "unseen" task...scary!

As if the interview is only half an hour. Do you feel well prepared for it? I'm not sure how many "facts" about policy they will expect us to be able to reel off or if it will just be key that we convey our enthusiasm and an understanding of the realities of teaching.
In the interview today it was only approx 20 minutes and nothing was asked about the curriculum etc which I thought was weird! The questions were more general about our skills and enthusiasm. But I suppose different unis look for different things. We got set a discussion task with a topic we got allocated on the day; mine was something like 'How can we get young people involved in sports in school' ha, (I hate everything to do with sport). So its not about what you know but how you present yourself I think!
And as for interview prep, I have a few examples from my work experience lined up in my head in case they asked about it (which they almost 100% will), and have a basic grasp of the changes to the national curriculum. Again I don't think they expect us to talk for ages about every single different change, but rather show we have some idea about what the hell is going on and that we are equipped to deal with the changes!
Reply 36
Original post by iloveunicorns
And as for interview prep, I have a few examples from my work experience lined up in my head in case they asked about it (which they almost 100% will), and have a basic grasp of the changes to the national curriculum. Again I don't think they expect us to talk for ages about every single different change, but rather show we have some idea about what the hell is going on and that we are equipped to deal with the changes!


Do you know of anything that clearly sets out the changes to the National Curriculum? I'm just having a little trouble getting it fully clear in my head! It seems to me that as far as English is concerned the curriculum has just been slimmed down and they seem really big on "reading for pleasure".

I might get have a look through the old curriculum and make a table of what's the same and what's changing...

I think that they are looking to recruit the right kind of personalities, not budding policy makers or people who think that they know it all already.
(edited 9 years ago)
Original post by Macruiskeen
Do you know of anything that clearly sets out the changes to the National Curriculum? I'm just having a little trouble getting it fully clear in my head! It seems to me that as far as English is concerned the curriculum has just been slimmed down and they seem really big on "reading for pleasure"


I can't actually find anything like that either which is annoying! I know there is a big focus on spelling and children have to read two Shakespeare plays between 11 and 14. Also having one exam for everyone is a big deal and is massively freaking all the teachers out!
Reply 38
Original post by iloveunicorns
I can't actually find anything like that either which is annoying! I know there is a big focus on spelling and children have to read two Shakespeare plays between 11 and 14. Also having one exam for everyone is a big deal and is massively freaking all the teachers out!


Not sure if I'm misunderstanding here...but isn't the change to just having one GCSE exam at the end a change to the exam boards, not the actual National Curriculum?
Original post by Macruiskeen
Not sure if I'm misunderstanding here...but isn't the change to just having one GCSE exam at the end a change to the exam boards, not the actual National Curriculum?


Well technically yes, but it's because of the changes in the National Curriculum and new expectations that assessment has been altered to only having one paper for all levels of students. So I think it would still be relevant if they were to ask about the NC in your interview. I could be wrong though but this is the impression I was under :smile: It's all a bit confusing if I'm honest....

Quick Reply

Latest