PGCE Secondary with recommendation for Qualified Teacher Status (QTS)

The University of Manchester Initial Teacher Education (ITE) partnership strives for excellence through high expectations of ourselves and our trainee teachers at every stage, from recruitment, through training, and into employment.

Our vision is to empower future generations.

Our PGCE with QTS programmes echo the vision, values, and principles as outlined by UCET (2020), and the purpose, vision, and values of The University of Manchester's vision and strategic plan. As a well-established provider of ITE, we recognise that teaching is a challenging, complex, intellectual, and ethical endeavour, which is:

• critical to improving student learning;
• critical to enabling the positive, transformational contribution that education can make to communities;
• critical to the development of more socially just and sustainable societies.

Our courses build on the substantial evidence base about teaching and teacher education and draw on a body of knowledge embedded in ethical practice, including robust evidence from research.

They encourage a lifelong commitment to the education profession and pay careful attention to the factors that promote a healthy learning environment for teachers and learners. Our PGCE curriculums are co-created with our wider school partnership and it is our intent to produce teachers who are:

• competent and confident professionals who learn from research, direct experience, their peers, and other sources of knowledge;
• epistemic agents, acting as independent thinkers, who learn to search for theories and research that can underpin, challenge or illuminate their practice. Our trainees learn to analyse and interrogate evidence and arguments, drawing critically and self-critically from a wide range of evidence to make informed decisions in the course of their practice;
• able to engage in inquiry-rich practice and are encouraged to be intellectually curious about their work with the capacity to be innovative, creative, and receptive to new ideas;
• responsible professionals who embody high standards of professional ethics, who act with integrity and recognise the social responsibilities of education, working towards a socially-just, anti-racist and sustainable world.

It is our intent to provide all of our trainee teachers with an inclusive, rich, broad, balanced and challenging curriculum, which is sufficiently flexible and adaptable to meet trainee personal and professional needs whilst also addressing both local and national priorities and needs. The curriculum provides trainees with the opportunity to develop knowledge of:

• secondary and post-16 curriculums and assessment requirements;
• progression in subjects;
• progression across age phases;
• subject knowledge;
• knowledge of how children learn;
• pedagogical knowledge;
• behaviours for learning;
• theories of teaching and learning;
• inclusion and diversity;
• statutory frameworks;
• health and wellbeing.

Our curriculum also provides trainees with the opportunity to develop the skills to:

• meet the Professional Teachers’ Standards (2012);
• be reflective practitioners;
• undertake scholarly activity;
• teach creatively and innovatively;
• be resilient teachers, whilst managing a workload and work-life balance;
• be an effective communicator;
• work collaboratively.

On successful completion of the course you will receive:

• a Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE);
• recommendation to DfE for Qualified Teacher Status (QTS);
• up to 60 master's-level credits towards further study, achieved through successfully meeting the academic requirements of three 20-credit units, which are as follows:

Unit 1: Learning, teaching, and assessment in the curriculum

• Developing and reflecting on subject and pedagogical knowledge in the relevant subjects/phase.
• Planning for teaching and learning.
• Assessing pupil progress.
• Evaluating teaching and learning.

Unit 2: Inclusive educational practice

The unit content is informed by a range of local, national, and local priority areas, for example:

• LGBTQ +, BLM and PREVENT agendas;
• safeguarding;
• behaviour management;
• SEN/D;
• disadvantage and poverty.

Unit 3: Developing practitioner enquiry

• Developing critical reading skills in educational research and as a practitioner.
• Issues in conducting research in an educational setting (practical, ethical, consent, validity).
• Identifying and refining research question, with a focus on what you can learn by listening attentively to young people in school.
• Selecting appropriate data collection methods.
• Analysing data, and discussion of findings alongside literature in the field, drawing meaningful conclusions and implications for practice.
• Presenting small-scale enquiry to colleagues and staff in the context of a poster conference.

The PGCE is a full-time programme over the ten months from September to June.

You will spend two-thirds of your course in schools or colleges (120 days), in a set of three contrasting placements. In each placement, you will work closely with a trained mentor - a member of your subject department who has the skills and commitment to support your development at each stage.

We maintain close contact with our partnership establishments. These include:

• 11-16 and 11-18 comprehensive and independent schools;
• academies;
• further education colleges;
• sixth-form colleges;
• specialist schools (e.g technology colleges, arts colleges).

In addition to the main placements, we offer all trainees a short Alternative Provision placement in a special school or PRU (pupil referral unit) to further promote understanding and skills of inclusion.

Note: If you are a home student, why not also apply to one of our Lead Programme Partners? These are located in Manchester, Bolton, Poynton, and Altrincham. LPP involves the same university programme but an enhanced placement programme in schools close to these centres. 

Our ITE provision (Primary, Secondary including Lead Programme Partners) has recently been inspected by Ofsted. The Ofsted report summary is as follows:

• Trainees at the University of Manchester flourish in a partnership that places high-quality communication at its heart. Staff and mentors share aspirational expectations of how trainees can inspire future generations of children and pupils. Through exceptional centre-and school-based training experiences, trainees are fully equipped with the knowledge and skills that they need to successfully develop and refine their classroom practice. Trainees across all routes thrive.
• In the primary age-phase, trainees readily apply their knowledge across the full range of national curriculum subjects, including early reading. Secondary age-phase trainees are deftly introduced to well-informed research that supports the delivery of their chosen subject specialisms. Trainees quickly develop the expertise to adapt their practice to suit the contexts of different schools and pupils’ additional needs. In their reflections, trainees balance pride in what they have achieved with measured ambition to further improve.
• Trainees profit from highly proactive support that is tailored to their professional or personal needs. They are taught how to be mindful of their workload and well-being. Trainees are carefully grounded in their wider professional responsibilities, including safeguarding and managing pupils’ behaviour. This ensures that trainees throughout the partnership are extremely well prepared to confidently begin their teaching careers.