I am three weeks into a PGCE and I feel like I have been hit by a truck. Is this normal?

[hapsty]

and does it get better?
TIA
HC xx

Yes, quite normal. Does get better - sort of better for me during my NQT year, much better by 2nd year teaching. Sorry to tell you that! Make use of fellow students as a real support network, emotional and academically. Where are you doing it?

I am at Oxford Brookes.
my fellow students are (mostly) wildly younger than me though!

Yes, normal. NQT is a bit better but not much and then it begins to get easier. I left my PGCE 3 times and am stilll teaching 8 years later.

3 times
that's pretty impressive
I feel a little better today after a four hour lie in

i think i am still gonna stick to the part time one now i have read this thread!!

Yes, it is bloody hard work. It does get easier when you have got 'used' to things.

NQT is a bit easier, and it is always easier to work with a class if they think you are a 'real' teacher and not 'just a student'

I did mine part time

Yes, it is ridiculously difficult - something only people who have been through it will understand, I'm afraid! And it does get easier.

and at the end of it all you have people quip, 'Those who can't, teach'

[bitter laugh]

Perfectly normal!

i'm doing one too, and loving the days i'm in school( 2 days/week) but really not enjoying the uni bit much at all - the main course tutor is not pleasant so i'm just counting those days off until i have my block of full time in school . Nearly all my coursemates are young enough to be my kids!! nice bunch though.