If you’re looking for a lifelong, challenging and exciting career, teaching may be for you. We were rated Outstanding in our most recent OFSTED inspection (2015/16) and we offer our students an exceptional training experience. 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.

Graduates from this course can go on to work in secondary school teaching.