We offer our students an exceptional training experience – if you’re looking for a lifelong, challenging and exciting career, teaching may be for you. As well as Biology (Sciences), the PGCE Secondary award, with QTS, is also available in Art and Design, Computing, English, Geography, History, Mathematics and Physical Education.
In your subject knowledge days, you will explore how to teach the key concepts of Biology through exploring and experimenting the ways in which each curriculum can be taught. You’ll discover how young people meet each concept across the curriculum and how their knowledge is expected to evolve over time.
Starting with direct instruction to give you the fundamentals of teaching, we then evolve our practice to incorporate a range of evidence-led teaching methods, such as dialogic inquiry, metacognition and cognitive acceleration. Over time, with inclusion at the heart of our programme, you will find yourself becoming increasingly adaptive to a range of student needs.
A lot of time is committed to rigorous practice: how to explain, model and assess different topics, how to use practical’s effectively and how to design schemes of work that impact on pupil progress. You will also delve into Physics and Chemistry, so that you are prepared to teach Science across the curriculum.
You’ll be supported by a range of experienced professionals, both during school placements and by academic staff at the university. The programme aims to help you become an engaging and effective teacher within the 11–16 age range, and provides the input and opportunities that could enable you to teach post-16. Successfully completing this PGCE course will enable you to teach at Secondary age, as well as Primary and A Level.
We were founded as a teaching college 175 years ago, and following the introduction of new quality requirements, our Initial Teacher Training (ITT) courses leading to Qualified Teacher Status (QTS), have successfully achieved reaccreditation in 2022 by the Department of Education.
Our ITT courses have also recently been rated ‘Good’ by Ofsted, with inspectors highlighting their ‘unique’ emphasis on sustainability and the University’s strong partnership with schools.
Study style
You’ll spend a minimum of 24 weeks in at least 2 schools, returning to central provision throughout the year for professional development and subject training. During the training year, you will engage in professional study and knowledge days where you will work with colleagues across the different subject areas to share good practice.
Employment rates have been consistently high for our graduates and we offer you the opportunity to undertake Master’s-level modules to gain Master’s credits. These can be used subsequently to take your career to the next level. If you pass all elements of the course at Master’s level, the award title will carry 60 master’s credits and qualified teacher status (QTS).
The course is assessed via summative written assignments, school placements and your individual portfolio which records progress in relation to the QTS standards. All elements must be completed satisfactorily.
There are a wide range of placements available which have been arranged with key considerations in mind: experience of different age-ranges and schools, accessibility/travel time, previous experience and so on. The tuition and school placements are organised in blocks throughout the year. The normal working week is approximately 35 hours and normal school hours apply when students are on placement (8am-5pm), with additional independent study.
What we offer
• High graduate employment
• Deliberate practice in every session – we take what we learn about teaching and we apply to practice, straight away
• Inclusion at the heart of the programme – we reflect on what challenges students might face from across the ability range within each topic
• Detailed, deep dives into the curriculum – we study each topic in depth and reflect on how to teach the teach and design curriculum to meet student needs. We stretch into the key topics in chemistry and physics too
• Specialist facilities at FCH
• A level Teaching input