The Student Room Group

Does PGCE really prepare you to be a teacher?

I'm at the end of my PGCE at the moment and I should (fingers crossed) pass my professional practice (being in a school). However, every now and again I am teaching awful lessons (this happens maybe 1 in every 10 lessons). Lessons where I struggle to think of a single good thing that happened. Lessons where I feel like I don't show half of what I can do. Is this normal? I feel like I let my mentor and my school down any time I don't teach to a certain standard but then they can't expect perfection from every lesson right?

What I'm hoping someone will tell me is that this is all part of learning and with teaching you never stop learning because I am freaking out that a couple bad lessons if going to cost me my PGCE. It's just right now I'm being looked at for every move I make and it's making me doubt if I can even do this but in real life teaching not every lesson is perfect right?
Original post by abs_smithh
I'm at the end of my PGCE at the moment and I should (fingers crossed) pass my professional practice (being in a school). However, every now and again I am teaching awful lessons (this happens maybe 1 in every 10 lessons). Lessons where I struggle to think of a single good thing that happened. Lessons where I feel like I don't show half of what I can do. Is this normal? I feel like I let my mentor and my school down any time I don't teach to a certain standard but then they can't expect perfection from every lesson right?

What I'm hoping someone will tell me is that this is all part of learning and with teaching you never stop learning because I am freaking out that a couple bad lessons if going to cost me my PGCE. It's just right now I'm being looked at for every move I make and it's making me doubt if I can even do this but in real life teaching not every lesson is perfect right?


Honestly, if you go into teaching thinking every single lesson will be good, you will be disappointed! There are a million reasons a lesson can be derailed, most of them nothing to do with you.

You are not letting anyone down by not being perfect, and you need to let go of this in order to survive. (I'd also add, who cares if you are letting the mentor/school down, the ones who matter are the kids). It is impossible to be perfect every lesson, and you would literally make yourself ill trying.

You will improve loads over the next few years, but I'm sure even 10 years in you will have bad lessons- you will just have more tools to deal with it when it happens.

You also need to bare in mind your PGCE has been hugely disrupted. Even if you were teaching online, it's very different to classroom teaching. Myself and a colleague were discussing this the other day, and saying the trainees in our departments are definitely a bit "behind" this year. Please don't be concerned by this- it's not your fault the pandemic has happened, but it may mean that you feel like you're struggling, even though you're doing as well as can be expected!

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