What's so hard about Secondary PGCE course?

Hi everyone,

I'm in yr 12 AS level student and basically I want to become an English teacher! Am I making the wrong decision? :P

Anyway a couple of questions to get the going: do you regret doing your secondary PGCE and not doing something like SCITT or a more school-based training program?

What do you find the most difficult aspect of your PGCE year?

If you went into the past knowing what you know now or whatnot, what would you tell yourself?

If there's any advice you would give any students who aspire to become a teacher through PGCE, what advice would you give them?

Reply 1

myrtille

Original post by Cool_JordH

It's OK, you don't need to make any decision yet! Do an English degree (or a joint degree that is 50% English - eg: English and History, English and a foreign language - whatever interests you) and you'll be able to do a PGCE afterwards if that's still what you want. So you have nearly 4 years to make your mind up, and if you don't want to go into teaching after all, you'll have plenty of other options.

I definitely don't regret doing the PGCE route. I originally applied for GTP (as you get paid) but didn't get a place. Luckily I then found out about the bursaries for the PGCE so could afford to do it after all. I think people make a false dichotomy between "school based" routes like School Direct and "university based" routes like the PGCE, and the government is emphasising this at the moment.

I am on the "university based" route and still spend far more time in school than university. It is currently over 2 months since I was last in university, and another 3 weeks til I'm there again. So it's not as if we spend all our time writing essays instead of teaching...

In some ways it would be nice to be in one school for most of the year, and to be there from the start, but on the other hand, it's good that we spend a fair bit of time in 2 different schools (9 weeks in our first placement, and 12 weeks in the second) as we get to know two different environments and see where we'd prefer to work. I know I'm heavily influenced by my schools - because that's the way I have do do things there, so it then becomes my teaching style - so I think I'd become too entrenched in one way of doing things if I spent most of the year in one main placement school.

The most difficult aspect is lesson planning, no doubt. In my 2nd placement I have 17 lessons to plan per week, and the absolute worst feeling is sitting with a blank mind in front of the computer at night, knowing you have to get the lesson planned for the following day. It's not like uni, where you have weeks to research and write an essay - you have 2-5 lessons every day (less in the first placement) and you can't just put off doing the work.

I would tell myself to get really organised before starting the PGCE as once you start, there just isn't time.