How Stressful is the PGCE Really?

I agree. But OP isn't listening 🤷‍♀️

@DudeDudeson you seem to be dismissing instructional design without exploring it thoroughly. I did a PGCE and worked in secondary and FE for ~decade before moving into Ed tech and learning design in HE. My current role is now much less stressful than teaching. I WFH 4 days a week and spend the other day in the office. I get 44 days leave a year and rarely work more than 35 hours a week.

There are plenty of learning technologist jobs that would be a step towards becoming an instructional/learning designer. You PhD would help you to get a Uni job and your masters would have taught you design skills that would be useful.

Look on alt.ac.uk for jobs.

The system has already collapsed with no sign of change. Governments love targets/inspections etc so these won't ever go away. Fundamental issue is that the general public don't value education and the Tories certainly don't. A Labour government could potentially stem the tide but the damage is already done and will take too much investment to fix.

@DudeDudeson teaching or training in a mainstream school is NOTHING like teaching at university, for a start you will be expected to teach children of all levels in a class together if they are not set by ability, that means children with a reading age of six alongside a high achieving child with a reading age of 16+, you will be expected to differentiate, make the content accessible to all and offer challenge. You'll be expected to engage students and control behaviour when the students have no interest and don't see the point in what you are teaching. You will be teaching children who have extremely complex home lives and needs, who only get to eat at school, look after disabled parents, live with addicts etc and the last thing they want to do is listen to their teacher going on about analysing war poetry.

Compared to your experience of students that are interested and paying ££££ for a university course, who are independent enough to move from home and have achieved good grades at GCSE and A levels.

I completely agree which is why I’m glad I’ve worked for decades and can think about leaving.

You, on the other hand, have a place on a PGCE and want to join it purely be sure you think that’s the only option you have?!

But you are wanting to move into the culture? You will have to adapt to it, it isn't going to adapt to you.

I would say do PGCE then look for a job that is 0.6 & you would work a normal number of hours that week.

So what I'm hearing is:

• you struggle under pressure
• you can't cope with regimes/strict overseeing
• you love autonomy
• the idea of 11 hours a day is impossible for you
• you want to teach English (the subject with the highest marking load of all of them). You will be expected to both plan and mark outside of school hours.

Forgive me, but this is not a good candidate for teaching. I would not appoint.

I'm not a teacher but DH is. My husband did the PGCE when we had a newborn (she was born 3 weeks after he started his course) and it was time consuming but not difficult.
From experience, if you are planning on working overseas you will find it hard to find an international secondary school that offers NQT years now - they are increasing rare. International secondary schools (depending on the country) tend to have a higher demanding set of parents as they are private and fee paying. In our experience the work life balance tends to be the same but the parents are more demanding and expect higher standards than a UK school.

I did a BEd so can't comment on the PGCE but I heard it is tough. Been teaching for the past 3 years and I'm done. Ruined my mental health. I tried to give myself a work life balance and not work evenings, not work on a Saturday, put boundaries in place but got ripped apart by SLT for not doing enough and not being good enough.

Teaching seems to be the only profession where your colleagues, seniors, pupils and even parents can constantly criticise your work and tell you you're not good enough. Not to mention OFSTED. I wouldn't encourage anyone to enter a career in teaching right now, especially if you're not ready to work all the hours God sends and have a LOT of resilience.

Aptitude tests ? They don’t use IQ as a method to select for the Civil Service. There are courses you can enrol on to prep for the civil service tests.

Assuming you’re in Ireland - have you thought about civil service or public service ? You have lots of transferable
skills.

in terms of work I thrive with autonomy but die a death with regimes

Sadly, I would say this rules many (most?) schools out. You might be lucky and find a rare one, I guess.

My brother did the course and found it quite an easy ride. He managed two years as an English teacher. He found it extremely stressful in every respect.

Sorry for the assumption.. I work with a number of men who are ASC and also don't fit the stereotype . Still, might be worth exploring. Good luck in whatever you decide.

I lost about 30% of my hair. Got to the Easter holidays and vowed I would never set foot in a school again other than for my DCs after completion of my course.

The lack of sleep, anxiety and workload reached levels I had not experienced. Plus I neglected my kids.

It was a horrific experience.