Pgce woes

[destiel00]

My nephew is doing a pgce. He's really struggling atm and I'm worried. One of his cohort quit last week! He is working all the hours he can - help literally works and sleeps. He's just finding it so hard to get all the work expected from both school and university done. He looks ill and I'm very concerned. My sister has asked me what she can do but other than talk to his mentor and course leader I don't know what to suggest? Help!

He needs to communicate with his uni if the placement isn’t supportive. It’s such a tough year. I’m 8 years into teaching now but had to give up everything for a year, social life, work… it’s horrid. But it does get easier!

• schemes of work should be provided, he can adapt what’s already there. It shouldn’t be that he has to make up his own?
• lesson observations and reflections - keep it brief. When I did my PGCE in the end, NOBODY read my paperwork. It was glanced over and I had to show I had it all completed, but nobody read it all cover to cover. So don’t waste too much time writing your life away!
• some lessons will be amazing, some will suck. It’s the way the job goes. As long as he learns from them and moves forward to make progress with the class, all good.
• lesson plans having to be in early - sounds like a school policy to me. He could talk to his department to ask for some leniency here?
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Thanks, all.
Just spoken to him. It actually went quite well, I think!
Certainly, he's made improvements since his last observation :)
I think that he needs to try to ask for more help from his mentor.
I'm a bit 🤬 at them giving him a target based on 2 late lesson plans when he'd reached out for their support!
He seems OK, and he realised what they would pick up on, and told them what he'd do differently next time.
God, what a roller coaster 🎢
His poor mum!

Re: handling criticism. I'm not sure its that per se, it's more him thinking that he should be "better".
I've explained that a pgce student who is showing measurable progress is what they want.
He feels his first observation (last year) went very badly and he was pretty fed up as his other lessons that day had been good.
It would be a huge shame if he quit. He's great with the kids and is very qualified in his subject area.

If he handed in his lesson plans late, then a target to hand his lesson plans in on time is fine. On the PGCE I mentor for we have to come up with 3 targets every couple of weeks or so and it can be an utter pain in the arse coming up with stuff.

If the problem was that he had too much uni work to balance with his school work but he has now completed that uni work, then it should be an easy target to meet.

PGCE courses are appalling -unfortunately the course leaders are incompetent, Just have to plough thought it. He is through the hardest part (lots drop out at Xmas.)
My PGCE (second career) initially put off teaching, but then got a great job in an indie.
As a STEM teacher he will be in demand, but definitely go indie to avoid the rubbish management in state.

I think it's the fact that it was twice and they knew why.
Seems very unsupportive to me 🤷‍♀️

I did have concerns about him doing his pgce with this uni tbh.
It wasn't the best during his degree course, but I think he felt "better the devil you know"?
I think he regrets it now!
He's my eldest dn and such a great young man, I hate to see him so stressed.
I really don't feel that the mentor/uni have been very good, but that seems to be a common thing?

It wouldn't have been supportive to ignore it either.

Having it as a target means that there would have been discussion about how to meet it.

It sounds like he will pass which is the objective, so good to push on through. Teacher Training was hugely tough when I did it and that was a number of years ago. During my PGCE a head said that he would 'assassinate me' if I left a room untidy (there were being inspected that day). He was off long-term sick shortly after and the school was judged inadequate. Stress can make people behave in inappropriate or odd ways in teaching. He should be able to just get to the end by the sound of it and have a good recuperation over the summer. Perhaps you can organise some things for him to look forward to which will raise morale. 😀

Nope.
Just given the target 🤷‍♀️

He's got some trips planned over the summer, so something to look forward to 😌

You sound very supportive of him.

Hm well there should have been some discussion of his targets with his mentor, but it's still a perfectly reasonable target for a student who hasn't been handing his lesson plans in on time. It's an absolute ballache for the class teacher if it's not done on time and creates workload for them.

Everyone in schools is struggling to meet their workload demands, not just the students.

I observed a trainee today. He's got no targets from last week and he won't get any feedback from me until Thursday.

That's not very supportive.

But I am responsible for 11 trainees and ECTs and the subject mentor is off sick with no return date.

Of course I should have made the time to sit down today to discuss it but by the time I came out of a meeting, he'd left for the day.

Schools get paid to host trainees but it's a pitiful amount after the placement. It's simply not possible to give mentors time to do the job. That's not an excuse - it's a reason.

This all sounds pretty normal to me. PGCE year is brutal. It’s standard practice for mentors to see lessons plans before the lesson, particularly if there are concerns over the teaching. Also he does need to plan from scratch otherwise he won’t learn how to. A target to hand stuff on time seems fine if it’s previously been late. Remember his school mentor will have a full teaching load too so if things are late this will impact on them too. Unfortunately teaching is pretty hardcore during term time. I was marking until 10pm last night and started again at 5:20 this morning. I needed to do more tonight really but I’m exhausted so going to bed. I’ll get up at 5 and do more then.

Targets are targets, I guess.
It certainly seems his mentor simply does not have the time to adequately mentor.
Not their fault.

@noblegiraffe
It was 1 lesson plan since the start of his pgce course, in a week where they know he reached the end of his rope.
I'm really disappointed they've mentioned it, tbh.
Obviously, my expectations of support for students is way off 🤷‍♀️

Mentors are expected to give an hour a week to their trainees.

We teach 50 minute lessons.
Staff teach 26/30. 3 periods are PPA so they can vaguely manage their own workload. The floating one is often used for cover.

The whole system relies on goodwill.

Absolutely we should do better by trainees and ECTs but there is no slack in the system.

You said it was twice?

Of course they mentioned it. When you fail to meet deadlines in a school, you are dropping your colleagues in it.

If it was a week when he was struggling and he's now in a better place, it will be an easy target to meet.

But it's not something that should simply be overlooked, because it's actually important.

21 years in and my honest advice would be to get through the PGCE as best he can then head for the hills and don't look back. The job is slowly killing me, as much as I adore my subject and my students, but whilst I've got a young child and a mortgage, I can't walk away so easily. So I work every hour god sends and dream of a time when I'm in a better financial position and can do something else. If I were just starting out and had no responsibilities, there's no way I'd go into teaching. It was hard when I started 21 years ago and I was told the age old myth that it gets easier the longer you've been doing it. It doesn't get any easier, you just get better at doing more with less and you make sacrifices in your home-life to do the job as best you can. It's a sorry state of affairs!

If a trainee doesn't submit their planning on time at my school, mentors are permitted to refuse to let them teach. And we'd report that to the uni.
We rarely have to do it, but as noblegiraffe says, it's inconveniencing my colleagues. And my first responsibility is to the children.

I'm really sorry to hear that @rosa24
I'm not sure what schools will do when highly trained staff like you and others on this thread leave the profession.
I think I'm going to advise him that, once he has the pgce, to look at other roles in education.
He loves the teaching, likes delivering his content (he has really enjoyed learning about other subjects in the differing curriculums) but I'm not sure it's worth the toll it's taking.
Until there is real change within education, it's just not an attractive option for graduates, and I've no idea how female teachers with young families do it.
I'm so glad I don't work in education anymore (non teaching role)
I was a school governor for over 20 years and I'd never do that again, either!
It all seems very broken 😕

I agree, on both counts.

I hope so.
He's a wonderful young man, who worked incredibly hard for his first 😊
He's my first dn to go to university, so I'm trying to help as best I can. It's all rather different since I worked at a university 20 million years ago

How awful for you!