Questions about training to be a teacher

[Clair78]

I am trying to decide what I want to do career wise and wanted to ask for some info on training to become a teacher.

I am interested in teaching in a nursery or nursery class really, you know the ones attached to schools, not private day nurseries. Either that or reception i think.

I have no real formal qualifications at all and realise I would need to do either several courses or an access course befor I could even go to uni.

If i did an access to teaching course though, what would i need to do after that ??? Is there a certain teaching degree that you have to do to teach nursery or reception ??

I really am clueless about this so any help would be great.

Oh may not reply straight away as have to pop out now.

Lots of ways to get into teaching. You will need a degree though in a primary subject to do a PGCE or A levels to do a BEd. Once you get a degree you could go through the graduate teacher training route, where you train on the job. It can be a very rewarding job but the training is difficult and very time consuming! Good luck!

Yes, basically you need to ensure that you have Grades C in English, maths (and Science if born after 78 but check that date, as not entirely sure!).

Then you need a level 3 qualification - that's 'A' levels or equivalent. So either access or 'A' levels or if you have an NVQ level 3 and have been working in a nursery, some teacher training colleges accept that.

Once you have done that, you can then do your degree. For primary school teaching, you are probably best off with a BEd or BA in education (teaching), but make sure that the course you do has got QTS as that is the bit that allows you to teach! You can do a degree and then a PGCE / GTT but this is less common for primary school teachers.
Good luck and HTH!

just wondering, if you dont have GCSE's could you do a level 2 in childcare (now an apprenticeship) then move on to level 3? Also could you do a cert ed instead of PGCE? I know teachers who hold a cert ed and not PGCE, not sure if it applies to primary teaching though?

Not sure that Cert Ed is still available as a course. All the teachers I know how have it, trained years and years ago.

I think you can get a cert ed if you don't have enough qualifications for a pgce course but I think it is only for further ed pgce rather than primary.

im currently doing a PGCE in post 16 education. Out of a group of 20 only 5 of us have degrees. Those without are all doing the Cert Ed route (we do the same work in yr1 but more is expected of PGCE students in yr2) I somtimes feel doing my degree was a waste of time if others can get the same qual without doing a degree.

When I trained - 5 years ago now - there were several mature students on the course who had done the Access course then started our 4 year BA/BSc QTS course. If you want to teach nursery/reception your best bet will be to do a BEd/BA/BSc QTS course, rather than a subject specific degree followed by a PGCE. Normally they cover the whole primary age range but you choose whether you want to specialise in KS1 or 2 and your teaching practices are spent in that age range.

Someone else has mentioned the Graduate Teacher Programme but I know of several people who have applied and the Universities will only consider people with an awful lot of classroom/school experience relevant to the age range they want to train in. A TA who worked with dh in his secondary school was turned down from several because she wanted to train in primary and she was told her experience wasn't relevant.

If you think teaching is something you really want to do, as opposed to seeming like a good option because of the holidays, etc (not saying this is you at all, but the drop off rate on teaching courses is HUGE when people realise what teaching actually involves) then I would recommend spending as much time as you can helping in a nursery school or reception class. Not only will it show you what you're letting yourself in for but it will also give you something to talk about in any uni interviews, etc. There's a lot of competition for places on teaching courses so if you can prove that you really are committed you will stand a much better chance.

I did 4yr teacher training course, now teacher nursery/reception at uni did the early years course 3yrs-8yrs olds. I think they are the best age to teach. they r so rewarding