What's involved in a PGCE placement?

[Claire926]

I have been thinking about doing a PGCE in English. I know the studying part of the course can be intense.

What is involved in the placement part? I can't seem to find anything online about what is involved in planning, teaching and marking. How many hours a day will this take up? Will you still have to do assignments too? I don't want to ask the uni as they will sugarcoat this.

Will there be time to see family and friends and do hobbies?

I really need to make the right decision.

Thanks.

The whole course is intense. Very intense. I managed to keep up a hobby (I was determined to have one night a week where I was ‘me’ instead of ‘someone doing their pgce’), but I think I was the only one of my cohort who did.

You generally spend a few weeks in Uni at the start of the course, a few weeks there around Christmas, and maybe one day a week for the rest of the course. The rest of it is on placement. You do a ‘short placement’ for the first term (about 8 weeks?) and a ‘long placement’ over the second two terms. In the short placement, it’s more about discovering how you feel in school. You start by teaching sections of lessons (maybe a starter or plenary) and build to teach several lessons a week on your own (under close supervision). In the second placement, you’re given a fuller timetable (about 40% of normal timetable?) and expected to be teaching all of it within about four weeks of starting.

The universities you’re applying for should be able to provide info about length and expectations of the placements. I’ve never known a provider to ‘sugar coat’ it. They’re always very upfront about how intense the course is.

(Do you want to know how intense actually teaching English is? Or would you rather not know? )

Yeah. It’s intense. You really need to make sure it’s for you. You also need to be sure you can be resilient and adjust. I’m training during covid and it can be exhausting trying to juggle work, teaching in school for the students that are there and also managing a life away from it.

In normal circumstances the course is very hard. In covid it’s pretty tough too. You have to prove yourself even more.

It’s not easy but if you can handle it do it.

It is very intense. I don't have any hobbies but definitely had no spare time to see family and friends. I had a child at primary school and as soon as she was in bed I was planning or working on assignments until at least midnight. Then up at 6 to do it all again. I was also a single parent so found it really tough. You will have to put your normal life on hold for a year unless you have a partner who is willing to do absolutely everything, apart from your placement and uni work, for you. Good luck.

You will have to complete assignments as well as meeting the demands of your placement but you won’t have a full timetable.

It’s very intense and time consuming. It is also both emotionally draining and rewarding. NQT is even more so as you have a lot more responsibility but are still expected to produce a lot of paperwork and evidence for what you are doing. It’s not for the faint hearted but you should still be able to make time to see family and friends. Whether you continue a hobby will depend on the hobby and on you. I managed to maintain one for my first term and could have still found the time after that but just found I wanted to veg and watch tv after all the work I’d been doing.

In terms of what you are doing while on placement, TheJackieWeaver has summed up the placement expectations. You will also need to write detailed plans for all your lessons and reflections about at least some of them. Assignments very from one provider to another but typically you will have to evidence meeting the standards through cross-referencing your plans and meetings and complete one or two full written assignments during the placement period (often a “theory into practice” investigation), I remember writing about intrinsic motivation and preparing the same types of lessons using different motivational strategies.

I'm doing PGCE through a scitt so I've been in school full time since October. It's full on. There have been assignments to do (tutorials for those usually in the evening) as well as school stuff (planning etc) and collecting evidence against the teacher standards in folders. Oh and also need to keep up and log CPD fortnightly as well as update subject trackers, progress trackers, write reflections, as well as teach.

I have spent a lot of half term writing and catching up. And actually seeing my own children. It's full on. I knew it would be. But i still wasn't prepared!!