What does our PGCE include?
The content of the course is regularly reviewed and is subject to change from time to time. Currently, the course includes the following components:
1. School Experience
This is the heart of the course. You will be in close contact with schools throughout the year. Prior to coming to the University, you will begin the course by spending nine days in a primary school close to where you are living. You will be provided with full details of what is expected of you during this time. Your primary school experience gives you the opportunity to understand the curriculum for 7-11 year olds, and how the basis of your teaching subject is built into the early years of schooling. You will assist in an experienced primary teacher's classroom, helping individual pupils and small groups to do the work set by the teacher, assisting with activities which suit your skills, and generally observing and analysing teachers and pupils.
Once you arrive at the University, you will concentrate on secondary schooling. In the first phase of the course (October to January), you will spend time in a secondary school working with experienced teachers. You are usually placed with a fellow trainee and will undertake a planned programme of observing and assisting experienced teachers designed to develop your confidence in working with pupils. You will spend the whole of the following eleven weeks in that school on a block teaching practice, gradually increasing the amount of teaching you do as your skills and confidence grow.
In the second phase of the course (February to June), you will follow a similar pattern but in a different secondary school. During this phase, you will undertake a teaching practice of eleven weeks. As during your first teaching practice, you will be given full support during your second practice and helped to develop and evaluate your own performance. In phase 2, you will gradually learn to experience the full responsibilities of a teacher.
2. Your Teaching Subject
Subject Methods courses will equip you with the knowledge of the National Curriculum in your subject area and develop those competences required to teach your subject to the 11-18 age range. These are addressed both during the university-based part of the course and during your school experiences.
You will develop skills associated with: presentation and communication of your subject; implementation of the National Curriculum; planning individual lessons and series of lessons; organisation and management of groups of pupils; assessing, recording and reporting of pupils' progress and attainment; teaching GCSE, 'A' Level and other accredited courses; teaching pupils of all abilities.
Information & Communication Technology (ICT) is an essential tool in encouraging pupils' active learning, and you will be required during the course to develop your personal ICT skills and to learn how to use ICT within your teaching subject to enhance pupil learning.
3. General Professional Studies
This is a core element of the course and is taken by all trainees as part of their introduction to key educational issues and the legal and professional responsibilities of teachers. This course will help you to appreciate that you are much more than just a teacher of a subject when you work in schools - you are part of a professional team whose role is to support the full development of pupils. As a professional, you will also have responsibility for working with others in the educational system, for understanding parents and the wider community in their expectations of schools, and for contributing to debates on complex issues within education.
This course will involve reflecting on wider educational issues. It is taught in mixed teaching subject groups because it is important that from the beginning of your professional development you are able to view educational matters from a range of perspectives. This element of the course will enable you to place the pedagogy of your subject within the wider context of educational provision and practice in society.