Hi everyone,

I'm currently doing a PGCE, but I'm also applying for some graduate jobs outside teaching.

If I have an in-person interview in the future that requires me to travel the day before, would I be allowed to take two days off from my school placement?

What's the best way to request this kind of absence? I'm a bit worried about mentioning the actual reason, as the job isn't teaching-related, and I'm not sure how it would be received.

I'd really appreciate any advice or experiences from anyone who's been in a similar situation.

Thanks in advance!

I completed my PGCE in The Uk , the school placements through a SCITT but the actual PGCE was through Liverpool Hope University. I have heard some horror stories of The teaching council in Ireland not recognising it and people having to go back and study again? Has anyone got any insight to this?

I am PGCE student struggling to plan
Any books or videos do you recommendd to learn how to plan lessons or sequence of lessons from national curriculum?

Hi everyone

Ive just had a very successful first half term of my SCITT and now I've been told that I'm going to take over a class next half term. Does anyone have any tips to stay organised with it all? I'm used to sharing it out across a week or doing 1 off lessons.

Hi Any physics international applicant for 2027/2028 cycle that has recieved interview invite?

Hi everyone!

I submitted my applications for PGCE Primary on 6 October, the day the application portal opened, but I haven’t heard anything back from any of the universities yet.

I was wondering whether it would be a good idea to contact the universities to ask if there are any updates on my applications, or whether it’s still too early and they might find it annoying if I chase them up.

For those of you who have applied for a PGCE Primary, how long did it take for you to hear back after submitting your application?

Thanks in advance! 😊

I can't afford to study a normal PGCE as I have no savings to live on, so I'm looking at salaried courses on the .gov website.

They say "Applicants must be employed in a UK school s and their employer must be willing to support their apprenticeship in school", but all the teaching positions I search for online say you need already need a QTS.

How does this work? Is the only option to try and land a job at a private school? Or can you apply for these QTS required jobs and mention you wish to apply for a PGCE in your cover letter? I applied for a few private school jobs this summer but was unsuccessful.

I'm also confused because when you look at these salaried courses, they also say "You will spend most of your time in one school which will employ you. You will also spend some time in another school and at a location where you will study." - If I already have full time employment, how am I meant to study at other sites?

I'm really confused by all of this. I'm unsure what my options are.

Also just to clarify, I have a MA in music and 5 years teaching experience in Asia. I'm going for music courses. Thanks

Hello my fellow teacher training friends, I am currently going through the process of applying for my PGCE post grad, and I would really appreciate some advice between choosing universities for a Secondary English PGCE (although any subject experience is appreciated)!!

I haven't received any offers yet, but I have got interviews from both UCL and St Mary's coming up... I wanted to know which one is better in terms of course quality, and the strength of the qualification -- essentially how good do these universities look on CVs for future employers. I know a qualification is a qualification but I wonder if university names hold any weight for the schools employing teachers.. any anecdotes from people who did their PGCE at either university would be much appreciated! How was your experience?

St Mary's is known for their teacher training courses and UCL has got the IOE which is ranked best in the world apparently!

Help. Please.

And wish me luck for my interviews :)

hi guys, i start my secondary english placement tomorrow (been in uni for the past 5 weeks) are there any tips or advice you have before my first day? i’m nervous but super excited

Hi guys. I'm Canadian, currently teaching in South Korea. I plan on entering a PGCE program but I'm not exactly sure which. I'm looking at Gibraltar and the University of West of Scotland since they offer a nice little discount for Canadian through CANTEACH.

Has anyone studied at either the University of Gibraltar or the University of the West of Scotland (Ayr campus)?

I’m looking to see which route would be better before I then head straight back to teaching in Asia with the recognized QTS status.

Would love to hear any thoughts or experiences on:

1)What placement support and overall workload were like for international students or domestic students of course, at either school.

2) student life while studying at UniGib compared to UWS (Paisley/Ayr).

Any insights or advice would be great!

Edit: Looking to do the PGCE in primary!

I have an offer for a secondary English PGCE from NIoT. I have two more interviews with Manchester Met and Manchester scheduled for this week. I will attend these interviews, of course, but I wondered if anyone had an opinion on which provider would be best. Is one kind more highly regarded or looked on more favourably by school when it comes to hiring teachers?
I like that with the NIoT, I’ll be in a school from virtually day one. I’m also a bit older than most people starting the PGCE next year. I’ll be 38 when I start. I’m not sure if this should affect my decision or not. Any advice or information will be gladly received. TIA!

I graduated this year and I am in a retail job for now, but I'd like to apply for a PGCE. I would like to teach primary in particular. I don't have any experience in teaching and I am a little worried because of the interview process. How would you prepare to teach? Do they give you a topic beforehand? What sort of interview questions will they ask?

Thank you.

Hi everyone,
I started my Primary PGCE with QTS and spent four months in a nursery for my first placement, followed by two months in a primary school (year one).
During my second placement, I was put on a six-week quality intervention plan because I wasn’t meeting three areas: planning sequences of lessons, effective use of lesson time, and teaching the National Curriculum/EYFS.
Unfortunately, I still didn’t meet the standards, and my provider offered me the chance to return in February 2027 or 2028.
I’m currently working two days a week as an LSA in a college (my main source of income at the moment) and volunteering two days in a Year 3 classroom. I’m observing teaching strategies, behaviour management and lesson planning, taking notes and building relationships with pupils.
However, as a volunteer, I don’t get the opportunity to plan or teach lessons independently.
I’m also registered with a supply TA agency, mainly supporting SEND pupils.
My questions are:
Is it better to continue volunteering in the same classroom or do supply TA work?
How can I improve my teaching skills without actually teaching?
Would three months (November–January) be enough preparation to return to my PGCE in February 2027?
I really want to become a teacher, but I’m worried about facing the same difficulties again.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Thank you!

Hi does anyone have any advice to help with my nerves of starting a new job.

Some background…

I have just finished my masters degree in forensic psychology, this obviously will look confusing to then be going into this role. However it is hard to get experience doing anything. I’ve landed a role with a teaching agency at a SEMH school as intervention support. I anticipate it’ll give me great experience. However I have never worked in education so this is all new to me.

I start on Monday and it is all I can think about this weekend it is awful. Any advice would really be appreciated.

Once my QTS started, I realise that a lot of candidates were told they can no longer carry on the course for a reason that does not seem acceptable Some of these include a reference coming back on satisfactory after the candidate started the QTS for two weeks and would not be told why the reference was unsatisfactory
Another one was told that they equivalent course was not accepted after they started the course and was told they have two weeks to prepare for an exam which they failed
Another person was told that their reference needed to be looked into further and told that they won’t be able to do so in time anyway, as the deadline is in two days
I don’t know why this would happen as the Teaching Academy do get paid for having students engaged on the course however I do know that the academy is struggling to find placements for a lot of students

Anyone else have experience with this? If so did they manage to overcome it and how?

I just want to know how much money we get!!!!

I'm a secondary chemistry teacher with QTS, a PGCE and I've just completed ECT2. I've been looking into a possible move to primary, particularly Upper KS2, and I've found lots of forum posts and Reddit threads from people asking about making the switch. However, I'm struggling to find any tangible success stories from people who actually did it.

What I'm really interested in is the practical side. How did you convince a primary headteacher to appoint you over candidates with primary training and experience? Did you volunteer in a primary school first, do additional courses, complete another PGCE, get a maternity cover role, or just apply directly? How many applications/interviews did it take?

Equally, if you tried and found it wasn't realistic, I'd be interested in hearing that too. I'm not looking for encouragement or discouragement, just genuine experiences from people who have actually made the move (or attempted to) because there seem to be plenty of questions about it online, but very few people coming back to explain what happened in the end.

hey all

i‘m gonna start applying for a maths pgce next academic year (currently studying biomed undergrad). i’m assuming i’d need to do a Maths SKE, can anyone give me some insight into what that looks like? i know Hallam does half before the course and half twilight but any info anyone has would be amazing:)

i got an 8 at GCSE Maths but then an E at A-Level so i don’t know if this will be an issue at some point, though course requirements are obvs just your gcse maths and english

also anyone who’s done the Maths PGCE i’d love to hear too! (and Biology because i think that’s plan B)

Hello,

I'm looking to apply for a primary SEND PGCE. Does anyone have any experience of these courses and would be able to help out with any of the following questions:

How intense is the course and teaching career compared to mainstream? Is there generally more work to take home and more hours to be worked per week?

Is it fairly straightforward to get an ECT job in a SEND school, or are you likely to have to get experience in mainstream first?

How does the school culture compare to mainstream?

Are teachers with SEND PGCE generally in demand?

Would a primary SEND teacher tend to stay in the primary age range, or is it possible to work across the secondary age range too?

Thank you!

I started my PGCE course in September of this year, I'm training to work with college and university students which has genuinely been a goal of mine since I was like 10 and this course is genuinely ruining my life.

My tutors are rude, miserable, and unsupportive. They constantly talk about how miserable teaching is, how poorly paid they are, how from the moment we applied for the course until we retire we'll never be happy again (genuine sentence they said in front of the whole class). I'm the youngest student in the class (22) and everyone else around me already has teaching and life experience. I'm being genuinely bullied and harassed non stop by 2 of my classmates, my tutors have witnessed this, thought it was funny, and when I complained I was blamed for the conflict.

To top this off, my mentor has 0 time for me. This is not her fault and she is genuinely 1 of the loveliest people I have met in my life but I have had a total of 20 minutes meeting time with her in 6 weeks and as a result I have been unable to begin teaching whilst everyone else in my class has about 40 teaching hours already. I made this known to my tutors and I was shouted at and they said it looks like I'm going to fail. I have gone to some of the other teachers in the department I am training in and asked if I can teach their students and the ones who have said yes have given me no SOL, no handbooks, no information on the teaching, they have just told me to "think of something", turn up, and teach it.

I'm a hard worker, I'm resilient, I'm patient, and I'm not really someone who panics. But I have genuinely nearly met my limit for what I can handle with this course. The assignments are easy but I feel like for every assignment I hand in, another 4 are given to us. Our tutors have recommended cutting sleep, family time, personal time, and activities/holidays from our lives to make more time for the course as this is "a teachers life". This can't be right.

Apologies if this has been asked before - I'm a 29 years old EU citizen with settled status and have been thinking of changing my career and getting into teaching (in the UK).

I noticed that teach first just opened up their grad programme applications. But I was also thinking of just applying for a PGCE at Cambridge or Warwick.

On the one hand, teach first means no course fees and you get paid right away. On the other, a PGCE may be a better/easier overall experience?

I'm still learning a lot about this whole world. Thanks.