How intense is a pgce year (training to be teacher)?)

[Wutipo]

Has anyone done a pgce to retrain as a teacher? I am just wondering if anyone ca. describe to me what it entails? Is it full days in university or some time at home studying? Also the placements, are these normally 5day a week placements? Would anyone mind sharing their experience with me? I am just reconsidering my career and wondering if doing a pgce is achieveable for me. I have children but youngest is now 10.

Mine was 30 years ago. It groomed us for the abused lives we'd have as teachers - overwork, constant stress, perpetual assessment, always assumed wrong, impossible expectations.

Don't do it.

There are part-time PGCEs (or they're used to be) where it gets done over two years. The IoE used to offer them, in London.

I did schools direct where you’re in school teaching full time, but also doing all of the uni work! It was VERY full on and a 1000x harder than the job itself. Totally worth it, best job in the world

I find this quote to be completely irrelevant to my experience of being a modern day teacher (recently qualified 3 years ago). the life of a teacher is not ‘abused’. It is the kushtiest job in the world!

I work 8:30-3:30, I have a class of 32 kids, and a part time TA. We are encouraged and praised to work only our contracted hours. PPA time is all ‘work from home’. Well-being is a huge priority, my school have signed us all up to access private health advisors, I am not at all stressed, I am not ‘always assumed to be wrong’. Quite the opposite actually - I am given immense autonomy, and my ideas are respected and often implemented.

There is training every week plus inset days, and various additional courses you can sign up to if you want to go into leadership etc.

There may not be many, but some unis do offer part time PGCE. A friend of mine did it (20 months I think rather than 1 year) then got two part time jobs for her NQT year and dropped one of them after that. Placements were full time though.

I was coming on here to say that some providers do part-time PGCEs. Goldsmiths, for example (but not for Maths).

www.findamasters.com/masters-degrees/pgce-courses/secondary-teacher-training/part-time/?33Mi45V7710

It is the kushtiest job in the world!

I’m not sure too many would agree with you!

Have you thought of Teach First? Full class responsibility from the start but you get paid and if you’re used to working a FT job, it’s really manageable, and you suddenly get a load of holidays you didn’t before where you can recuperate.

The Open University offer a PT route but might just be in Wales. Does cover Maths

I did it when my eldest was 1.5yrs old. It was hard, but I managed!
I think the hours were 9-3 when at uni and 8-4.30 ish when in school.

I work 8:30-3:30, I have a class of 32 kids, and a part time TA. We are encouraged and praised to work only our contracted hours. PPA time is all ‘work from home’. Well-being is a huge priority, my school have signed us all up to access private health advisors, I am not at all stressed, I am not ‘always assumed to be wrong’. Quite the opposite actually - I am given immense autonomy, and my ideas are respected and often implemented.

Mind sharing where this school is it sounds almost mythical? Surely if this is your reality you must realise you are the anomaly, 99% of schools are not at all like what you've described.

I’m now SLT at a secondary, but still view my PGCE year as the hardest in my career.

Oh aye, is that right? If you finish at 3:30pm every day and that's it, when do you do your planning, resource prep and assessment (it can't all be done in half a day), marking, prep for the following day (if you are only getting in at 8:30), data analysis, paperwork for children with SEN, meetings about specific children, incident logging, meeting with parents/dealing with parents emails, report writing/parents evening prep, subject leader stuff, extra curricular stuff etc etc etc (literally just off the top of my head) When you are actually teaching during the school day?

Mine was the hardest year of my life.
Uni was full time and school was more than full time. It’s the same as doing a masters (ie assignments etc) and being a teacher both full time at the same time. Hated it. I’ve worked in schools since on pastoral roles but wouldn’t teach.

Mine was about 10 years ago now but uni days were 9am -5pm. I'm a core subject though - I think other subjects had shorter days. This was for secondary; pretty sure primary was probably more full on. It was brilliant though. I loved my pgce year!

I did a PG Cert a couple of years ago via School Direct - 4 days at school and 1 day Uni. I was salaried so teaching full days from the beginning.

I'd have thought with Maths you'd be in a strong position to negotiate hours but probably best to get the qualification done in a year if you can.

I love the job but the baseline effort required just to deliver a day of lessons is pretty high - and far more is required to do it well! I work full time now, usually 8-4.30 but some days I can finish earlier/later. There's a weekly meeting after school until 5pm and some other training / parents' evenings each term. We can take PPA at home which is nice. I need another half hour or so at home each day and a few hours at the weekend depending on what planning and marking needs doing.

It seems like every school does things differently but there's no denying it's hard work.

I took a part time job for a while as then I would "only"wworkdaytimes mon-fri (using non working days for prep and marking) and would free up eveningß and weekends a bit. To me it was basically full time term time.

Bear in mind that if you get a part time ECT arrangement (if they even exist) then it will take you even longer to qualify and complete induction.

Your Spanish teacher mate was able to get PT as she's already qualified.

Have you thought about FE?

I teach maths in my local college - GCSE re-sits and Functional Skills.

I qualified about 100 years ago so did the traditional teacher training route but if you have the relevant maths qualification you can do the teacher training bit very part time and lots of our staff teach part time

It's bloody relentless.

Half day uni, rest of the time in placement school. 3rd term I'm teaching 80% now with all that entails - planning, sorting resources, marking etc. Differentiating for my sen pupils. Paperwork, deep dives, cpd seminars, break duty, dinner duty, book monitoring, emails, phone calls.

But I reckon ECT years will be harder because I'll not have my mentor there who is still the 'boss's. I'll be the 'boss's. 😟

My pgce was twenty years ago. At the time I think Sheffield Hallam did a part time two year course possibly ?? Pgce is very full on. I preferred nqt year but this was secondary so it was more about the respect from the kids being a lot more when not a student teacher than workload. The thing is teaching is always very long hours though . Even if you get a part time teaching job the days you are in school you'll want to be there before 8 to set everything up (or earlier depending on when school starts) and it's rare to leave before 430 and then you will be doing a lot of work in the evening at home and at weekends.
A 9-5 'normal'job is often less hours even with the holidays . The other thing with teaching is that it's never finished - there's always more you can do which starts to feel relentless at times

I did my PGCE part time. The university teaching was 2 days a week but the placements were full time. In total it took 18 months. There was also a flexible option I believe, which took up to 2 years.

My children were 11 and 12 when I started it, and it worked well for all of us. Definitely worth seeking out a course that suits you.

The course composition will vary with institution but you can expect to be putting in 60 hour weeks for your pgce and onwards.

If you are thinking about going into teaching with how you can give the least input before you even start, you are not cut out for teaching.

I think there are part time courses available - just check with Open University.
If you get a decent Personal Mentor/University lecturers, then it is not too bad, but if you don't - then you're in for a bad time. And there is nobody who will help you.