Interview for PGCE at a University- what is my son wearing?

[Manifesto]

A suit? A suit done casually?
Something else?
It’s a long afternoon of face to face presentations and discussion groups and he doesn’t want to look over or under dressed.

my background is business - education is different I know.

any advice?

Dress like a teacher. Suit or smart

Compulsory ties for male teachers at my school and jackets for everybody. Most of the men wear a suit.

DD has three PGCE interviews lined up and they’re all online so she’s getting away with a decent blouse.

Schools are behind the corporate world and insist on suits and ties for men unless teaching PE (secondary)

When DD had hers (2 years ago), the dress code was pretty much anything smart.
They know that young applicants straight from uni might not be able to afford a suit, so shirt+ tie, or plain jumper, + trousers. Older applicants on a second career usually suit + shirt+tie or jumper.
Women often trousers/skirt and smart blouse.

Another thing to be aware of is that they will be doing placements in schools with different dress codes. Some require a jacket/blazer for staff (male and female). Some don't. Dd required proper shoes (or boots) which after uni years in converse/ was a bit of a shock.

A suit would be best, if he feels overdressed, he can always remove the jacket. If not, shirt, tie and smart trousers would be fine. Shoes not trainers.

Thank you all. He’s there now. We’ll hear later if the suit and shirt combo was an outlier or bang on!

Hope he’s done well and got a place. What’s his subject specialism?

@Manifesto - know it's too late in the day, but my ds wore a suit to one of his PGCE interviews back in November, and others there were wearing suits too. The harder one was a Teams interview, where he couldn't really wear a suit as felt weird, but wore a shirt and tie and his suit trousers 'in case they ask me to stand up'. They didn't ask, as it happened.

Offers from both so obviously OK on the clothing front at least.

Hope it goes well for your son.

Retired secondary headteacher here (I'm still a school governor with 3 schools).

I expected and would still expect staff to wear suits (equivalent formal wear for women) to interviews and throughout my career in 6 schools, it was de rigueur for candidates - including internal candidates - to suit up! This includes PE staff. If they were being interviewed for a PE teacher job, they would attend in suits and change fir the teaching part of the interview.

Absolutely not necessary to wear a suit. It’s like a uni interview so clothes are totally irrelevant. School expectations are a different kettle of fish.

Suit

Nice to see it's reduced from over £500 to a mere £265. .

Suit, shirt, tie. All the secondary schools insist on that here. He can remove the jacket and tie easily if appropriate, but can’t add them if he doesn’t have them with him.

thanks. It’s languages

@Manifesto - same as mine!

They’re a dying breed I believe!

Sadly so.

My son wore a suit and a nice shirt but no tie for a similar interview. He got the job.

Hilarious. Been a teacher for 25 years and just left work about half an hour ago. All male teachers in the schools I have worked in (3 in ten years) expect men to be in suits. At the very least jacket and trousers.

What sort of school do you work in? Seems like the majority of people on here agree with me.