3yrs v's 4yr course help!

Hi all, my daughters had her offers in & narrowed it down to B'ed Secondary PE Qts 3yrs (St Marks & St Johns) Plymouth or BA in the same at Brighton but 4yrs. She absolutely loves Brighton but from a financial point of view Plymouth makes more sense, the 1st year halls are approximately £2000 cheaper & she'd be teaching a year earlier! I feel as if I'm pressuring her to choose Plymouth.. Any thoughts?

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Reply 1

oxymoronic

Original post by Poppybear

Hi,

For background, I trained as a primary school teacher (I did a PGCE) but I now work in the admissions and recruitment team at an unnamed university.

I think you need to look closely at what is offered at Brighton in the additional year. In general, four year teaching courses offer more teaching practice and more opportunities to gain extra qualifications (eg: coaching) than three year ones simply due to the fact it's an extra year. I've taken a look at both courses online and there's a lot more information on the Brighton site on what that extra year involves.

The above is important when looking for jobs because at the end of the day there are lots of NQTs looking for jobs and often not enough jobs to go around, particularly in certain parts of the country. Anything that can be "added extra" when it comes to applying for jobs is often worth taking on as long as you do it well and it's relevant. This brings me onto another point - does your daughter have any idea where she wants to teach in the future? I'd highly recommend training near to where she wants to do her first couple of years of teaching. This is for two reasons - one in that schools talk and I certainly found that headteachers were recommending their trainee teachers to other local schools, and so much of getting a teaching job is about who you know/who you are rather than whether you're necessarily the "best" candidate on paper because there's less of a risk involved. Secondly, because she will be applying for jobs at the same time as completing her final placements. For each job you apply for it's essentially a day out of school if you're not applying locally. Most schools expect you to visit them before you make an application (although I have heard this is less important at secondary level) meaning you need to take time to do this before applying, then the interview will also take up a couple of hours plus travel time. If she's studying hours from where she wants to get a job it is going to be likely that she will not be able to start her NQT year in the September simply because there are not enough hours in the day to complete the school placements and also apply for jobs. I did a PGCE so it was only one year, meaning my experience will probably be more intensive than on a BEd placement, but I trained around an hour from where I wanted to work and found it difficult. If she wants to be anywhere other than the south west for her initial years of teaching then Brighton might be the better option simply because it's much more easier to get to other places.

I would also consider aspects like the geographical area that the placement schools cover and how easy they are to get to, particularly if she doesn't have a car. It may be that one university has a better set up for getting students to placements, which is certainly something that is desirable. At my PGCE university it was considered acceptable to be travelling for up to 90 minutes each way to get to a placement and whilst they did take into consideration whether people had a car, it could still mean some awful journeys simply because the universities are completely dependent on schools offering placements. It could end up that yes, her first year accommodation is £2000 less but in reality she ends up having to buy a car or pay substantially more for transport each week than at the other location, for example. Likewise, some universities pay or subside the placement transport costs whereas others provide nothing.

The other thing to consider if she's now 17/18 is does she really need to be teaching a year earlier, at the age of 21? She'd then only be 3 years older than her oldest pupils. An extra year can make a big difference, giving her an extra summer at uni to gain new experiences and get "older" - it's really not going to make much difference in the grand scheme of things whether she finishes at 21 or 22 but she might feel it makes a difference in terms of what she does to mature in that extra year.

Good luck :smile:

Reply 2

Poppybear

This is brilliant, thank you. She has a Pro's & Con's list I've just looked and literally everything you have mentioned is on there.. She clearly has thought about it & I should have a little more faith!!

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