PGCE Applications 2016

Hi, probably a dumb question, but does anyone know how to get the student declaration of health forms? it's in the conditions of my offer to complete this and send to the university. They did not post me out a health form, and I asked my GP today about it and he had no idea where to get them. He suggest asking the university. Does anybody know how to go about getting it? Thanks

Hi everyone -

I've got an offer for Primary at UCL but I think I'm going to withdraw and reapply next year for Secondary English or Schools Direct when I've got some experience of Secondary school too. Behaviour was the thing putting me off but I figured I can't make a real decision until I've seen both sides.

Does anyone have any tips for getting Secondary experience? Finding it MUCH more difficult to get a positive response than when I was asking to volunteer in primary schools

How much experience did Secondary people have when applying? I work with kids up to 14 and recently volunteering in education dept of an inpatient psych unit with 11-18s for a few months but thats all I've got so far with the older kids. I've applied for some English dept TA and PRU assistant roles - so hopefully something will come of that! Most Secondary TA roles seem to be 1-to-1 SEN which I'm not really interested in...

Call the school office if you can, explain what you're applying for and why you need to sit in on some lessons and they should tell you the correct person to contact. It seems to vary in every school so it's easier to just get them to put you in contact that guessing.

I had 10 days of sitting in lessons/sort of TAing. This seems to be more what they care about because it shows you what teaching is really like and in both my interviews I was asked things like, "How would you teach this?" and, "How did the teachers you've seen deal with this sort of thing?" Plus it'll help you decide if it's for you.

Also try to go to a variety of schools - I went to three and at the first one the behaviour was awful and none of the teachers had effective methods for controlling it. The next two were much calmer and the teachers had better control of the classes.

I also had a year of working for a widening access project on a casual basis and a year and a half working part-time in a primary school.

Yeah - I recognise how important actually being in a school is. It's worlds away from extra curricular work and tuition! I'm going back to my old school for a day, which is an independent girls' school, and hopefully have a few days around North East London. Just going to continue hounding everywhere....

Thank you!

Hi everyone -

I've got an offer for Primary at UCL but I think I'm going to withdraw and reapply next year for Secondary English or Schools Direct when I've got some experience of Secondary school too. Behaviour was the thing putting me off but I figured I can't make a real decision until I've seen both sides.

Does anyone have any tips for getting Secondary experience? Finding it MUCH more difficult to get a positive response than when I was asking to volunteer in primary schools

How much experience did Secondary people have when applying? I work with kids up to 14 and recently volunteering in education dept of an inpatient psych unit with 11-18s for a few months but thats all I've got so far with the older kids. I've applied for some English dept TA and PRU assistant roles - so hopefully something will come of that! Most Secondary TA roles seem to be 1-to-1 SEN which I'm not really interested in...

Just a word of warning - apparently they prefer it if you do it in a school you're not familiar with and in a state non-selective school. That's what the info for my subject said even though not many non-selective state schools teach it.

However, you could probably talk about the contrasts, if any, and it's a nice way to dip your toe in the water - you have months until it's time for you to apply so you can get some pretty good experience under your belt!

Yeah, I know it isn't going to be the best experience in terms of 'look what I did', it's more because I know my old English teacher will tell me the truth and probably give me a hundred documents on the curriculum etc :P

I live in East London, so am contacting lots of local schools which have a real range in behaviour/attainment/Ofsted reports - so should end up with a good overall perspective by the end of the academic year!

Thank you for your advice

Hey , how long did you have to wait for a reply from UCL , I had my interview last week so waiting atm 🙈😜?

That does sound useful!

You're in a much better position than I was then as you can get to loads more schools - hopefully lots get back to you.

I hope you really enjoy your experience!

Also - I've applied for a Lit MA for 2016/17 - did you find having an MA worked much in your favour, or were they not overly interested? I'm doing it because I want to do a PhD at some point in the future, so will do it regardless - just wondering if it seemed to have any impact...

Anyone applied to Durham?

Yeah, ages away!

I know - one school is in Oxfordshire haha. I can't drive so I hope they don't place me too far away or I'll really struggle to get to uni on college days.

Yeah haha, there was one in Bolton as well! :O Yeah same situation!!! I live in London so I'm hoping even if they can't give me a Cambridge-commutable one they might give me a London-commutable one!

I guess it's because we're meant to train in state funded schools so that limits the number of schools a bit!

They told me to be prepared to move half way through the year which I will suck up and do if I have to but it sounds like it'll make housing contracts a nightmare. Plus, after 2 years of commuting 2 hours a morning to uni, I kind of want to have a decent social life again and being so far from the uni makes that harder.

Yeah, lots of the schools in Cambridge are private.
Where is this list of schools? I can't seem to find it.


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