PGCE Primary

The University of Manchester Initial Teacher Education (ITE) partnership strives for excellence through its high expectations from recruitment, through training, and into employment.

Our vision is to empower future generations.

Our PGCE courses 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;
• crucial in improving student learning and in enabling the positive, transformational contribution that education can make to communities, and to the development of more socially just, anti-racist 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 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:

• primary curriculum 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 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.

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.
• 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.

Our PGCE courses include both school-based and University-based learning, and they are full-time from September to June.

As a trainee, you'll spend a significant amount of time in our local partner schools. The main professional placements are:

• 20 days of intensive training and practice (a combination of University-based and school-based days);
• ten weeks of school experience placement in the autumn term in either Key Stage 1 or Key Stage 2;
• two-week inclusion-focused placement in either key stage in the spring term;
• two-week placement in the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) in the spring term;
• ten weeks of school experience placement in the summer term in either Key Stage 1 or Key Stage 2;
• one day in a Key Stage 3 setting

In total, you will spend 120 days training on placement in schools.

The rest of the timetable will be university-based.

Our PGCE Primary has been judged by Ofsted to be 'Outstanding' in all areas of provision. Key strengths of the programme included in the Ofsted report include the:

• high quality and challenge of the training, most especially in mathematics and science.
• highly effective provision to develop trainees’ subject knowledge alongside their knowledge of how to teach it.
• pervasive collegiality and ‘can-do’ ethos which brings out trainees’ enthusiasm, their willingness to work hard, their wish to improve and to reflect on their own performance honestly and realistically.
• regular auditing of trainees’ progress and their views, with a timely response to identified needs, so that trainees benefit quickly from improvements and amendments.
• wide range of school-based experiences and the tailored use of practitioners and expertise from within the partnership to plan and deliver training.