Anyone have any experience with the PGDE course?

Just wondering if anyone here has any experience with PGDE courses?

Back in my former life, I'd been planning to get a post-bacc. teaching certificate, but my career took an unexpected detour, and that idea went on the back burner. Then, after I'd moved here, I didn't think I'd ever get a chance.  But now it looks like our local UHI campus might try to offer their PGDE (Primary) course via distance learning, so I'm trying to decide whether to apply.

It's just a one-year course, and half of that is spent in various schools, so I guess I'm just wondering if people who'd done the course felt that it gave them enough preparation?  Do you feel like you actually learned enough about theory/methods/etc.?  When you entered your probationary year, did you actually feel like you knew what you were doing?

Nothing can ever really prepare you for teaching - mostly you just have to look for the good and roll with the bad...

I teach in England, and did a GTP, so not a HE based course. I was not prepared for my first year of teaching.

But you get all summer off.....

But you get all summer off.....

Not really my prime motivation.  Though it is a nice perk.

Or, rather, it would have been.  It's irrelevant now, as I've accepted a new job, in Inverness.  I'm moving at the end of the month! (Hooray for civilisation!!)

Inverness looks lovely! Congrats!

Listen, your first time in a supermarket.....they have everything!!

But you get all summer off.....

I work 60 hours a week during term time and on average, 2 days per week during all holidays. I have worked out that I work the equivalent to 58 weeks per year, full time. Chunks of holidays just about let teachers restore sanity. It's the constantly changing expectations and arbitrary mid-stream changes that make this such an insane job at the moment...

For a bit of light reading on teacher workload:
https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-views/a-recruitment-crisis-pay-and-conditions-freefall-obsession-results

https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-views/seven-new-years-resolutions-teachers

And the most read article on TES this year is entitled 'I hear of teachers crying on the kitchen floor because of the stress:
https://www.tes.com/news/school-news/breaking-views/%E2%80%98i-hear-teachers-crying-their-kitchen-floor-because-stress%E2%80%99

But yes, in theory, we 'get long summer holidays'. Trite.

We get it.  Relax.   

I'm well aware that the breaks teachers get are well-deserved, and barely adequate compensation for the term-time workload.

I'm 98% certain that SonofaSailor gets that, too, and was simply joking.

I'm sure you're beyond sick and tired of the abuse that teachers, and the teaching profession, attract day in and day out.  But that's not what you're seeing here.  So, relax.

No, it was a juvenile troll on my part.

One of the dangers of those kinds of things, like ironic racism/sexism.....even if they are used around people who "get it", is the possibility of someone latching on to it as truth, and perpetuating it.

And of course, even though Kate, of all people, knows that the "summer break" argument is ridiculous, it can still cause frustration and pain.

For the record, my view on public education is summed up best by West Wing's Sam Seaborn:

"Mallory, education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don't need little changes, we need gigantic, monumental changes. Schools should be palaces. The competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be making six-figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge to its citizens, just like national defence."

I got out of teaching as soon as I could (at 54). That was with the US system....which does not generate anywhere near the amount of time consuming paperwork that the UK system seems to generate these days. I figured sonofasailor was just joking.......  When I think back on my younger days of teaching when I was filled with more oooomph, I can't believe how many hours I put in. I was coaching 2+3 sports (2+hrs after school every day..every weekend sports trips) as well after school. There were times when I was at school every day for 3 months or more. I always told myself I would quit if I started turning into what I saw with some older teachers that were just showing up and disappearing as soon as they could.....I was getting that way the last couple of years.

When I actually hear someone seriously whine about how easy teachers have it, I always just ask them "If it's so easy, and you make plenty of money etc etc....why doesn't everybody want to do it?"

The paperwork seems to be killing UK teachers.......