£9250 paid to be bullied by goons...

[YetanotherPGCEdropout]

One year teacher training with QTS, costs £9250, but I only did four weeks of the course. I dropped out having been bullied by Personal Mentor, having never thought that could happen to me. It was a shock.
The university still charged me £2000, and when I appealed, it was like talking to a brick wall. The tutor had already warned me that I'd been bullied at that particular school, since the previous trainee had been bullied to the point of nervous breakdown by this same Personal Mentor. So that might be the reason for the lack of refund. However. It's alot of money to pay to be bullied by goons.

I’m sorry you had such an awful experience. You will have been charged because they believe you were studying beyond the date at which you became liable for 25% (or however much the first instalment is) of the fees. If you know the liability date and you believe you withdrew before that then you have grounds for a refund. It won’t be because you were warned that you would be bullied - if it is the case and you have any evidence then you definitely have grounds for complaint, but it is unlikely to affect whether you have a refund or not.

I think I'd have asked for a different mentor, or a different school, rather than drop out completely. There are quite robust measures in place to protect you as a trainee.

How was the mentor bullying you?

Read their terms and conditions for fees and situations where they refund and their appeal process. It's a shame you dropped out rather than try and move or go through the complaints process.

"How was the mentor bullying you?"
I'd like to answer that, but as the bullying was so extreme, the details of it "did the rounds" of gossip, so if I give details, I will be identified. I'd rather remain anon. Apology.

"Shame you dropped out".
It is a shame, but I was a wreck. I did appeal and was just ignored by the university.

That would have been a better option.

if your appeal went unanswered/dealt with, you have recourse to the Public Services Ombudsman. I’m in Scotland, So it would be the SPSO, but you don’t say where your university is based - so if elsewhere in the uk, just Google it. Your university also has a responsibility to give you the details of their complaints procedure.
Sorry you didn’t feel supported.

Thank you Holla Holla xxx

It’s usually the Office of the Indpendent Adjudicator for higher education if you are in England or wales

Was the headteacher aware of the bullying? This person probably bullies others in their dept too. The teaching councils take this kind of thing very seriously now, I’d get in touch with them to report it. It won’t help you now but could stop this person bullying others in the future x

I completely feel your pain. I was bullied by my Deputy Head during my NQT year to the point that I very nearly walked out just before the end of term 2 so that I wouldn't fail my NQT year. Ofsted visited just before and all my lesson observations went well so she didn't have a leg to stand on when she wanted to fail me for the 2nd term.

If teaching is a passion and something you really want to do with your life, I would suggest that you try to stick with it.

Was this during your school based teaching practice? If so, couldn't you request to be moved schools or to be assigned a new mentor? I guess it doesn't really matter since you've dropped out but if it's at all possible and teaching is something you really want to do, ask if you can go back to your studies next year.

A word of warning though, PGCEs are notoriously stressful, the NQT year is as bad and the rest of your career will have many ups and downs. You'll have crap lessons and outstanding lessons. I've seen excellent and experienced teachers breakdown in tears because they had a crap lesson observation. Hell, I've broken down in tears myself so many times when I've had crap observations. It's important to learn from from the crap ones and to remember that you can't have perfect lessons all day, every day without killing yourself in the process. But if you stick with it, teaching is a very rewarding profession (not financially in the UK) and can take you all over the world. I now teach at a private international school in Asia and haven't had to take any books home to mark for the past 10 years as we get around 7 hours of non contact time a week to do all that.

Totally irrelevant but I also trained at MMU (Crewe campus)

The tutor had already warned me that I'd been bullied at that particular school

I don’t understand this sentence

I was bullied on my second PGCE placement and it made me ill. You have my sympathy with that. I was lucky that my university tutor was brilliant.

I know you say you only did four weeks but is that four weeks of placement or four weeks of the whole course? The first three weeks of my PGCE were all based at the uni. So had you only done 1-2 weeks on placement or the uni weeks plus 4? Maybe they don’t even do the first bit in uni any more. I’ve been teaching a while so things may have changed.

Are they charging you the first instalment of fees because of the university tuition you’ve had rather than the placement, perhaps? That may well be their case to any ombudsman. You should still try it, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find that they are allowed to charge you partial fees.

I had a mentor who was a bully too. She really got me down, I questioned myself and my abilities.

I went on my second placement and it was such a different experience. My mentor from main placement came to observe me along with my tutor. She was awful to me, and about the school. The feedback she gave me, my second placement lead trainer complained about.

On the first day back at my main school she spoke to me like I was shit, but made the mistake of doing so in front of others. She sometimes still does it now when she’s stressed. I reckon someone had a word higher up the food chain, because mostly she spent my last term being helpful and supportive.

I just gritted my teeth and got on with it, knowing I’d be shot of her soon.

sorry to hear you went through this too, I wanted to say I believe you when you say this happened to you and it’s awful to experience.

I'm sorry OP. I can't comment on QTS as I know nothing about the organisation.

But the bullying mentor needs to be dealt with. I can't understand people like that, they must be very troubled bitter and twisted individuals. I have seen teachers and head teachers like this. They are pleasant to many but if they don't like you they destroy you. This teacher will be treating parents and students in the same way, not all mind, only those whose they are intolerant of.

If you have evidence of the bullying you should fight to get your money back or be offered another chance next year with the 2k off.

It’s likely meant to say ‘be’ instead of ‘been’.

@YetanotherPGCEdropout I’m sorry for what happened to you. There are some horrendous bullies around and I can well believe that it was an awful experience for you.

So did your tutor know your mentor would be a bully, warned you about it, then did nothing when you struggled? I think that's worth pursuing, put in a complaint that you weren't adequately supported by the university. But as an aside, given the state of teacher recruitment in this country, the fact that trainee teachers (the same could be said for nurses etc) are charged over £9k to train is absurd. And that we can lose new recruits so easily, for something that could and should have been sorted by the university, is scandalous, we need you! Anyone would think the government don't want schools staffed with trained professionals. Maybe we'll move to fully remote education soon, have massive halls filled with students sitting at computers all day doing online learning (like in Mexico). We won't need very many teachers if we do that, just some adults for crowd control will do. We can get away with paying them peanuts, and there's probably some great opportunities for friends of the government to make a killing on contracts for all that new tech and IT support we'll need. A proper "education" will be for those who can go to private schools only, which is as it should be of course. We can't have the great unwashed getting ahead of themselves.

Oh don't give them ideas @ToadiesCouzin .

It's awful that bullying (between staff) is still so rife in schools. I've been a teacher for 20 years in 6 different schools, and of those, 2 had bullying management, with one in particular being horrific, and I ended up leaving with no job to go to. A 3rd school had a head teacher who was clearly having a nervous breakdown but wouldn't admit it, so school in chaos. A 4th school had a lovely head but completely ineffectual when it came to behaviour, so school also in chaos.

Only 2 schools, including the one I'm currently in, have actually been well run, with good, supportive, caring management.

I really feel for you OP . I am a mentor and my recent speciality has been taking student teachers where their first placement has broken down. It more often than not is heavy handed micro managing by first placement memtors. There has only been one student teacher in the last 10 years who hasn't passed once they have been given a new placement with us. It often is a combination of naiviety and lack of resilience from the pgce student and over management by mentors. I can never understand how teachers suddenly lack the ability to nurture and teach adults. It's like they are angry at them for not just being a natural teacher.

The tutor had already warned me that I d be bullied, is how I took it.

Op, it sounds like this mentor is a huge problem, having bullied someone else before you. You'd think the university would have either dropped that s

And me. Typo.

Go to your union