PGCE Teacher Training | What I wish I'd known

apparently I have a serious problem doing this regularly, so I sincerely apologize and before I continue apologizing, let's get into it. Hello everyone, welcome back. Yes I'm so sorry. I had some kind of problem. You could say it's just a minor problem. the computer crashed and did not recover, yes the hard drive died. To be honest, I should have expected it, I was like eight years old, but anyway my editing software was on that laptop and so, you know, we've been a little behind. and trying to get everything back too, unfortunately, I was editing a high school music video with flora um and I literally was editing it for two weeks and then all my work got deleted because it was all on the computer, so if I'm honest, I don't have enough time, there's less energy to do that again, so I think it's going to be a high school music video.

I'm so sorry guys, I know you're all waiting. Anyway, I had so many requests. That's not where we are. I'm going to talk about today because today we are talking about being a

teacher

. I am currently in the middle of the term. I have four more weeks. Four more weeks until I qualify. Yes, major imposter syndrome. In a month I will be fully qualified and capable. to run my own classroom that I'll have in September, but you know, we'll get through it, okay, okay, okay today I wanted to talk about some things that I think some people might want to know about PGC that you wouldn't necessarily think about when you're applying or potentially you've thought about it, but these are things that I personally didn't think would be the case or just didn't consider before rambling on because we know I'm good at it, here we go, just a quick one to get out of the way.

This is something I didn't really know, but I was quite surprised when I found out that it doesn't matter if you train in primary or secondary education, you are actually still qualified to teach in the opposite school, so anyone who trains in secondary education in a subject specific can still go to teach primary school and do the entire curriculum and then vice versa if I, who am

training

in primary school, suddenly wanted to go. at secondary you could teach any subject you have the highest qualification in, so for example if you have a degree in a subject you can teach it at gcse and a level and all the way down if you have a level in the subject. you can teach gcse below, so basically after this year, when I qualify, I could technically go to a secondary school and teach year seven to eleven in my levels a, um, I don't want to do that, I don't really want to be a mathematician.

Teacher, but you know, I was quite surprised when I found out and, yes, mentally, another more practical thing I think was just me ignoring the fact that I didn't know this, but don't expect your placement in school to be right around around the corner. from where you live, I'm currently in Durham and I live quite close to the city center and during my undergrad I did some mini volunteer placements at schools which were all very local so I figured that when I was in a PGC I might be placed in one of those schools, no, the university asks you when they try to give you placements if you have a car and obviously if you have a car, that means they'll probably give you something further away, um, I don't have. a car so I had to have a school that was on one of the bus routes but it's still about 20 minutes from Durham which is fine I don't really care but it wasn't

what

I expected I really thought I went to walk to school every day, that didn't happen in the actual course.

I really don't want this to sound like I'm complaining because I'm not. I have really enjoyed my course this year, but these are just important things. I think you should know that if you sign up because the year is very intense, as everyone knows, it's very intense, uh, and I think it's important to be aware of the different aspects that you're going to have to participate in, basically, so one thing. At first I struggled to find a good balance between your academic commitments, such as essays and assignments, and then the work that comes with being on placement, teaching, planning, the assessment area.

Sometimes I got too wrapped up in school and the planning aspect. and I kind of neglected my rehearsals. You have to remember that it is still a course and that still counts a lot for your

training

. I think sometimes I have this attitude that at the end of the day. The teaching is the important part and that's

what

I'm training for, however I can't grade without those essays so you still have to do them after you're in school, something I struggle with and didn't think about. What was naive on my part is the behavior management. I think I underestimated the difficulty of having to go into someone else's classroom where the kids know their

teacher

s, know how they work, and respect them a lot and then basically take over and have to win. same respect obviously some of the kids are lovely and respect you instantly, others don't, I won't lie often it tends to be some of the kids so picking up those management skills and gaining that authority quickly is a challenge , it's a challenge, um, but it's really important.

I think once you've done that, everything else becomes a lot easier. I can't express how easy everything is once you are respected and you have the attention in the room, there will always be people who are harder to work with, but I think if I prioritized that more in the beginning, I would have gained a lot more stability before, so yeah, I think that's my biggest advice for people starting next year, which is something I love about the course. is that the people in the course will be at completely different stages of their lives. I don't think I realized how many people would be much older than me and had taken a lot of time away from education to return to their course. and in fact I like it a lot, it's very nice to hear different origins.

A lot of people in my course had children, so when we did class discussions, they would include aspects of that in their um, anything that they learned or their experience in this type of course. It's really helpful to hear different people's experiences and perspectives on child care and learning and all that. A sad note. Vacations aren't really vacations for you. I was very excited to have two weeks off at Easter. But most days I was in my room uh writing my essays yeah take a break um but don't take the whole two weeks because you really need them to catch up on the academic side of things and that's what I found from everyone modes job applications now this is the worst part they take This takes a long time and I don't think anyone really tells you how long each different application will take.

You have to make a different statement or CV etc. Obviously you can use little snippets, but it has to be personalized. each school and that takes a lot more time than you think. I was lucky that I didn't have to apply for many places. I only went for one interview and thank God I got it, however I have heard stories from other people. It really takes care of everything, so I think trying to start earlier instead of leaving it to the last minute could again help. I think in most situations starting earlier is always the advice, but when it actually comes down to being practical and doing it, that's it.

It's much harder to pull off, but I say it anyway because it's true. The last thing I wanted to say is that the importance of establishing a good working relationship with your class teacher, oh my goodness, it can make or break your experience. I've been incredibly, incredibly, incredibly lucky. My class DJ and I are doing very well and have very similar teaching styles. Personality. And I had a great time. I've had situations where it hasn't been such a good experience. And obviously. sometimes it's out of your control I think it's really important and like I said it can make or break your experience because they are basically your evaluator the person you are with every day and the help can get you through the year if you are fighting.

If you bond well at first and then start to struggle, it's much easier to handle and you can work together to do well. I guess at the end of the day your class teacher wants you to do well, it shows. Too bad for them if you don't do it right, so they should be there to help you and you just need to establish where they both are at all times. I think that's all I have for today. I hope this was helpful once again. I always say this, but if you have any questions, I'm always happy to chat with you, so shoot me a message on Instagram or anything in the comments.

I don't mind. Thank you very much for watching, please subscribe for more educational content if you like. If you have any ideas on what to do for conversation, do this on every video, but my camera died. I really need to start carrying it more honestly if you're watching this and not interested in teaching. I don't know why you would be watching this if you weren't interested in teaching because it's about teaching, so please stick with the Durham content, the theater content, I want to start doing more of that and I'm trying to start making more videos. comments with flora um yes, there are a lot of funky vibes around here thank you very much for seeing us see you very soon goodbye it is