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Best University for a PGCE in primary Teaching.

Just wondering which is the best University for the PGCE primary teaching course.

Of course I will be going to a few open days. Just wanted to know which university are good for the program.

I'm considering these few universities:
Nottingham Trent University
UCLan
University of Winchester
Plymouth marjon University
Again I would appreciate advice on this.

Thank you 🙂

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Have a look at the ofsted reports for each university (these are only done for teacher training courses)
Original post by Kentinho99
Just wondering which is the best University for the PGCE primary teaching course.

Of course I will be going to a few open days. Just wanted to know which university are good for the program.

I'm considering these few universities:
Nottingham Trent University
UCLan
University of Winchester
Plymouth marjon University
Again I would appreciate advice on this.

Thank you 🙂

Hello,

Whilst we are not on your list, I would love to recommend York St John. The university is very well known for teaching and held in high regard. I am a Primary Education student so will gain a degree and QTS through the university and a headteacher on my placement told me that if they could only hire YSJ graduates, they would. We even get placements in Leeds which says a lot about us as there are two teaching universities in the city but they accept us from York!

PGCE students receive a packed timetable and three placements. When paying university fees, PGCE students definitely feel as though they get their money worth. You can choose school direct or university centered to suit your study needs. Here is a link to our options: https://www.yorksj.ac.uk/courses/?collection=yorksj-meta&profile=_default&tab=courses&query=pgce.

All of the teaching lecturers at YSJ get to know the students so well, we are names not numbers to them. They even know where we would like to take our teaching careers and are great at offering opportunities and advice to aid this. The support we get from them, and especially when so many of us could have felt alone in a pandemic, has been outstanding.

York is a beautiful city to come and study in too! It is a city of culture whilst still having plenty of shops and great nightlife. You do not need to leave the city but York is very much a capital of the North with strong links all over the country. The schools here reflect this and you can have the valuable experience of working in a city school and then travelling a little further to work in a village school that does forest schools!

Good luck with your career and whatever choice you make!
Lydia :smile:
Original post by Lydia Taylor (YSJU Student Ambassador)
Hello,

Whilst we are not on your list, I would love to recommend York St John. The university is very well known for teaching and held in high regard. I am a Primary Education student so will gain a degree and QTS through the university and a headteacher on my placement told me that if they could only hire YSJ graduates, they would. We even get placements in Leeds which says a lot about us as there are two teaching universities in the city but they accept us from York!

PGCE students receive a packed timetable and three placements. When paying university fees, PGCE students definitely feel as though they get their money worth. You can choose school direct or university centered to suit your study needs. Here is a link to our options: https://www.yorksj.ac.uk/courses/?collection=yorksj-meta&profile=_default&tab=courses&query=pgce.

All of the teaching lecturers at YSJ get to know the students so well, we are names not numbers to them. They even know where we would like to take our teaching careers and are great at offering opportunities and advice to aid this. The support we get from them, and especially when so many of us could have felt alone in a pandemic, has been outstanding.

York is a beautiful city to come and study in too! It is a city of culture whilst still having plenty of shops and great nightlife. You do not need to leave the city but York is very much a capital of the North with strong links all over the country. The schools here reflect this and you can have the valuable experience of working in a city school and then travelling a little further to work in a village school that does forest schools!

Good luck with your career and whatever choice you make!
Lydia :smile:

Hi Lydia,
Thank you for the information does ysj do a PGCE with specialism. I would love to come to an open day next year. I am unsure of whether to do my undergraduate degree then work for a while then do a PGCE or do it straight after my degree. Is ysj a big university because I prefer slightly smaller universities.

Thank you so much for the information

Kind regards
Cam 🙂
Can’t help but notice that there are no Russell group unis on your short list. Is that intentional?
Original post by DrSocSciences
Can’t help but notice that there are no Russell group unis on your short list. Is that intentional?

I'll be honest with you. I don't know what a Russell group is. I think they are too smart for someone such as myself. Nothing wrong with them or anything of course not. Just saying I'm not smart enough to study at a Russell group. Haha
Original post by Kentinho99
I'll be honest with you. I don't know what a Russell group is. I think they are too smart for someone such as myself. Nothing wrong with them or anything of course not. Just saying I'm not smart enough to study at a Russell group. Haha

Well, if you don’t ask, you don’t get. Don’t limit yourself from the outset: it’s worth exploring.
Original post by DrSocSciences
Well, if you don’t ask, you don’t get. Don’t limit yourself from the outset: it’s worth exploring.

Ah true true. Thank you.
Original post by Kentinho99
Just wondering which is the best University for the PGCE primary teaching course.

Of course I will be going to a few open days. Just wanted to know which university are good for the program.

I'm considering these few universities:
Nottingham Trent University
UCLan
University of Winchester
Plymouth marjon University
Again I would appreciate advice on this.

Thank you 🙂

Add to your list:
Edge Hill
Oxford Brookes
Chichester
I've never heard Plymouth rated for this
Original post by Kentinho99
I'll be honest with you. I don't know what a Russell group is. I think they are too smart for someone such as myself. Nothing wrong with them or anything of course not. Just saying I'm not smart enough to study at a Russell group. Haha

RG is totally irrelevant for Primary teaching - you need a newer university [one of the 'old' teacher training colleges] - they are FAR better.
Original post by DrSocSciences
Can’t help but notice that there are no Russell group unis on your short list. Is that intentional?

That's because RG is not important for Primary teaching and they certainly aren't a good choice.
Original post by Muttley79
Add to your list:
Edge Hill
Oxford Brookes
Chichester
I've never heard Plymouth rated for this


Thank you. No I'm considering Plymouth marjon as its the uni I'm doing my undergraduate at and the PGCE seems quite good there.
Original post by Kentinho99
Thank you. No I'm considering Plymouth marjon as its the uni I'm doing my undergraduate at and the PGCE seems quite good there.

It's not well-known nationally like the ones I mentioned. Do look at them ...
Original post by Muttley79
It's not well-known nationally like the ones I mentioned. Do look at them ...

Ah thank you
Original post by Muttley79
That's because RG is not important for Primary teaching and they certainly aren't a good choice.

So it’s not wholly helpful of postgraduate.com to list ‘The Top 10 PGCE Courses in the UK’, and include Birmingham, Bristol, Durham, Exeter, Manchester, Nottingham and UCL for Primary PGCE? Opinions may vary it seems.
Original post by DrSocSciences
So it’s not wholly helpful of postgraduate.com to list ‘The Top 10 PGCE Courses in the UK’, and include Birmingham, Bristol, Durham, Exeter, Manchester, Nottingham and UCL for Primary PGCE? Opinions may vary it seems.

How do they judge them? I am judging them as a serving teacher who speaks with many Primary teachers and schools. I was also involved with the Primary Maths Specialist teacher programme ...
Original post by Muttley79
How do they judge them? I am judging them as a serving teacher who speaks with many Primary teachers and schools. I was also involved with the Primary Maths Specialist teacher programme ...

Well, it seems as though it’s a fight you’re itching to have so you should probably take it up with them. I was just flagging the discrepancies across the views here.
Original post by Kentinho99
Hi Lydia,
Thank you for the information does ysj do a PGCE with specialism. I would love to come to an open day next year. I am unsure of whether to do my undergraduate degree then work for a while then do a PGCE or do it straight after my degree. Is ysj a big university because I prefer slightly smaller universities.

Thank you so much for the information

Kind regards
Cam 🙂


Hello,

Our applications for 2021 are currently closed so if you are finishing your degree now, that gives you time to work for a little while, take a well earned break and then apply early when applications open. I personally worked as a teaching assistant before starting my teaching degree which gave me such valuable experience and helped me to gain some confidence in a classroom before having to teach in one! Alternatively, working as an agent would allow you to do this and gain experience in so many different types of schools and even nurseries. It is also a chance to save up some money before going back to a student budget!
If you are finishing your degree in the coming year and want to jump straight into your PGCE, that is great too. It gets you to where you want to be quicker and you are still in the mindset of academic study.

We do not offer specialisms as such. The three modules you will cover are Learning and Teaching in the Primary Curriculum, The Developing Professional and School Experience. You are able to explore the wider curriculum as well as the three core subjects in the first module which will allow you to find a specialism. Whilst it cannot be studied at university due to the volume of content that is fit into one year, you are able to explore it on your placements and take a lead on that subject in your classroom. All of our partner schools are so encouraging like this.

YSJ is a smaller university, we have under 10,000 students on our campus. This does not mean our facilities are compromised as we still have a 24 hour library (which is the only university library with a children's library within it), a gym, multiple study spaces, plenty of support teams and amazing placement team all on campus. I love studying here because everything is in one place and I do not have to travel around the city between lectures. It also makes for a real community, I've found especially with the education courses, and you always have a mutual friend with someone.

Please get booked onto our open days when they start next year! (Our last open day this year is fully booked). Until then we are running campus tours every day and would love to show you around. If you ask for an ambassador who does Primary Education, such as myself, we can show you all of the facilities tailored to us and talk about why we love education at YSJ so much. Here is the link to book onto that: https://www.yorksj.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/open-days/campus-tours/.

Lydia :smile:
Original post by Lydia Taylor (YSJU Student Ambassador)
Hello,

Our applications for 2021 are currently closed so if you are finishing your degree now, that gives you time to work for a little while, take a well earned break and then apply early when applications open. I personally worked as a teaching assistant before starting my teaching degree which gave me such valuable experience and helped me to gain some confidence in a classroom before having to teach in one! Alternatively, working as an agent would allow you to do this and gain experience in so many different types of schools and even nurseries. It is also a chance to save up some money before going back to a student budget!
If you are finishing your degree in the coming year and want to jump straight into your PGCE, that is great too. It gets you to where you want to be quicker and you are still in the mindset of academic study.

We do not offer specialisms as such. The three modules you will cover are Learning and Teaching in the Primary Curriculum, The Developing Professional and School Experience. You are able to explore the wider curriculum as well as the three core subjects in the first module which will allow you to find a specialism. Whilst it cannot be studied at university due to the volume of content that is fit into one year, you are able to explore it on your placements and take a lead on that subject in your classroom. All of our partner schools are so encouraging like this.

YSJ is a smaller university, we have under 10,000 students on our campus. This does not mean our facilities are compromised as we still have a 24 hour library (which is the only university library with a children's library within it), a gym, multiple study spaces, plenty of support teams and amazing placement team all on campus. I love studying here because everything is in one place and I do not have to travel around the city between lectures. It also makes for a real community, I've found especially with the education courses, and you always have a mutual friend with someone.

Please get booked onto our open days when they start next year! (Our last open day this year is fully booked). Until then we are running campus tours every day and would love to show you around. If you ask for an ambassador who does Primary Education, such as myself, we can show you all of the facilities tailored to us and talk about why we love education at YSJ so much. Here is the link to book onto that: https://www.yorksj.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/open-days/campus-tours/.

Lydia :smile:


Hi thank you so much for the information. I'll definitely book onto an open day for next year.

I still have ages to go. I've not even started my undergraduate yet. Haha. I start in September. But I am planning on the future. Yes I may have different turns of events throughout my undergraduate studies but it's never too early to plan for the future I say haha. No thank you for the information. It's given me a lot to think about.

Thank you so much. 🙂
Original post by Kentinho99
Just wondering which is the best University for the PGCE primary teaching course.

Of course I will be going to a few open days. Just wanted to know which university are good for the program.

I'm considering these few universities:
Nottingham Trent University
UCLan
University of Winchester
Plymouth marjon University
Again I would appreciate advice on this.

Thank you 🙂

Hi,

Good idea to start your researching early!

We do offer a Primary PGCE at Edge Hill, as well as PGCE Primary Early Years Education. We're a campus-based university and I would say campus is small to medium-sized, so you can easily walk from one side to the other in 10 minutes or so.

We hold Postgraduate Open Evenings, so once you are further into your undergraduate degree, you may like to come along to one of these to find out more. In the meantime, I would recommend trying to gain some relevant work experience whilst you're doing your undergraduate degree. This will strengthen your PGCE application and give you more opportunities to draw upon at the interview stage, which is especially useful for universities where teacher training is more competitive. There may be opportunities during your undergraduate degree to get involved with local schools as a volunteer, or you may be able to get involved with tutoring or children's charities. The Careers Service at your university will be a great place to start to seek out some of these opportunities and start to enhance your skillset and employability with a PGCE and teaching career in mind.

Hope that helps, do you in touch if you have further questions about our PGCE courses at Edge Hill or our Faculty of Education.

Good luck!

Best wishes,
Becky

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