The Student Room Group

Doing a PGCE in a different subject to your degree

Basically, I am in AS year and I have vague aspirations to teach, I did my year 10 work experience in a primary school and enjoyed it so I have thought that one day I may like to teach. However, I want to keep my options open because I am yet 100% sure about my career. Therefore I have been advised to look into doing a degree in a subject I enjoy, so I have thought about Psychology. My worry is that Psychology is not a subject taught in the majority of schools, so I have two questions:

1) If I did a Psychology would I still be fine to do a general PGCE in primary school teaching.

2) If I did do the psychology degree how would I go about then doing a PGCE in a specific secondry school subject, as in could I do a psychology degree and then go and do a maths PGCE for teaching maths at secondry school (I will have an A level at maths)

3) If you have to do your PGCE in your degree subject how would I get into secondry school teaching, is there a method to it?

Thanks for your help, Joe
Reply 1
1) If you do a degree in Psychology you can definitely do a Primary PGCE


the rest I'm not too sure about.
Reply 2
K..W.Studd
Basically, I am in AS year and I have vague aspirations to teach, I did my year 10 work experience in a primary school and enjoyed it so I have thought that one day I may like to teach. However, I want to keep my options open because I am yet 100% sure about my career. Therefore I have been advised to look into doing a degree in a subject I enjoy, so I have thought about Psychology. My worry is that Psychology is not a subject taught in the majority of schools, so I have two questions:

1) If I did a Psychology would I still be fine to do a general PGCE in primary school teaching.

2) If I did do the psychology degree how would I go about then doing a PGCE in a specific secondry school subject, as in could I do a psychology degree and then go and do a maths PGCE for teaching maths at secondry school (I will have an A level at maths)

3) If you have to do your PGCE in your degree subject how would I get into secondry school teaching, is there a method to it?

Thanks for your help, Joe


1. Yes you could as jessica said!

2. As far as i am aware no because you need the degree so your knowledge is higher than what you are teaching to enable you to teach it properly. If this makes sense, sure this is right.

3. If you do a degree and then a pgce in your degree subject this is fine and your pgce provider should help you get a job.

Hope this helps! :smile:
Reply 3
1. Ditto

2. In principle, no; but it depends on the competitiveness of the course - they're crying out for Maths teachers, and many come from non-maths degrees.

3. You could go for a PGCE in Social Science; will enable you to teach Psychology (and usually Health and Social Care) where available, and you cover the national curriculum end by doing Citizenship/RE/PSRE as your second subjects
Reply 4
There are Maths conversion courses, for example!
Reply 5
What I meant by question 3, is if I did the PGCE in Psychology, how would I go onto teaching maths for example at secondry school?

I think Jess answered it by saying maths conversion course, what is that?
Also Peachy, when you say non maths courses, could that be any non maths course, or maybe just specifics such as sciency ones?
Reply 6
I think Keele do a maths conversion course where you do plenty of degree-level maths and get a PGCE. Although if you were thinking of teaching maths - a maths degree would be fine for primary or secondary. Or maybe even a joint honours maths and psychology? I had a further maths teacher with exactly that degree.
Reply 7
You are best off to check out the TDA website.
http://www.tda.gov.uk/Recruit/thetrainingprocess/youroptionsinfull/pretrainingcourses/subjectenhancementextensioncourses.aspx

This is about enhancement courses. There are a variety of PGCEs in Social Sciences, which are open to Psychology graduates, but you cannot go into English or ICT only with a Psychology degree. Not sure how it works with Science, because your degree covers a lot of biology, I assume, but it may prove to be difficult. The TDA website has a lot of information though
Reply 8
I was recently talking to someone about teaching careers and PGCE and they said that apparently the people who run the PGCE courses dont like you to have a psychology degree because it isn't national cirriculium.
Can anyone explain this, if I went to uni and got a psychology degree how would I go into primary teaching? Is it possible?

Also I went on the TDA website but found it hard to navigate, can anyone go into a little bit more detail on what the conversion courses are. Are they such that I could do a psychology degree and then do the conversion course at the same time as say a maths PGCE, or do you do the conversion course for a year and then the PGCE?
Thanks, Joe
Reply 9
K..W.Studd
I was recently talking to someone about teaching careers and PGCE and they said that apparently the people who run the PGCE courses dont like you to have a psychology degree because it isn't national cirriculium.
Can anyone explain this, if I went to uni and got a psychology degree how would I go into primary teaching? Is it possible?

Also I went on the TDA website but found it hard to navigate, can anyone go into a little bit more detail on what the conversion courses are. Are they such that I could do a psychology degree and then do the conversion course at the same time as say a maths PGCE, or do you do the conversion course for a year and then the PGCE?
Thanks, Joe

Hi Joe,

The link I provided above should lead you straight to the conversion course part of the website. Other than that, I cannot provide further information.

I know that you can go into Primary teaching with a psychology degree. In fact, a lot of people on Primary PGCE courses have degrees in non-curriculum subjects, such as Education Studies and Early Childhood Studies. While these are related, you can also get onto the course with Law, Psychology and other degrees.
If I were you, I would try and specialise in child development and child psychology during your studies and if you have optional modules, choose those from the faculty of Education or possibly Maths or English.
But it is possible.
Reply 10
Thanks alot, I just had another look at the conversion course site and I understood it a little better. However, what I didnt seem to see an answer to is when you would do the conversion course?
Say you have just completed your degree and decide you want to become a maths teacher would you do your maths PGCE and Maths conversion course at the same time, or would you do the conversion course one year and the next year do the PGCE?
Joe
It is called a pre-initial teacher training course, which means you do the Maths enhancement course for 26 weeks (you will also receive a £225 bursary per week for that time) and then you go into a PGCE. I assume you apply for the PGCE before you start the enhancement course, because the latter starts in January and 26 weeks will get you into the middle of the year. So on successful completion, you would then start your PGCE.
In fact, you apply for the ITT course (PGCE) and if offered a place, you will be referred to an enhancement course.

Applying for enhancement/extension courses
If you think you need to go on an enhancement or extension course, you should first apply to an initial teacher training (ITT) course. If the course provider considers you to have the attributes to make a good teacher, you will be offered a conditional ITT place and referred to the enhancement/extension course provider in your region. It is also a good idea to contact the enhancement/extension course provider in your region directly.
This is a little off topic, but does anyone know if I could get onto a primary PGCE with a sociology degree?
Yes, you can get on a Primary PGCE with a Sociology degree.
The requirements are a degree in ANY subject (pref. a 2:1) and GCSE Math, English and Science at grade C.
I know you can get onto a Primary PGCE with a degree in any one subject, but if I was to do a Joint honours (For Instance in Mathematics and History) would that be just as acceptable? Or do they prefer a single honours degree?
My degree is joint honours (Journalism and cultural studies) and I got onto a Primary PGCE, my degree subjects weren't even mentioned lol!
Do not worry!! My degree is in Drama and I've just been accepted onto a Primary PGCE. A good thing to do at interview is to explain the strengths of the subjects you've learnt and how they will help you teach.

Best of luck xxx