Choose the right teacher training route for you

The most popular initial teacher training (ITT) route is the postgraduate certificate of education (PGCE) – this course may be university or school based (known as a SCITT: school-centred initial teacher training). If you fo for a PGCE with a SCITT, you’re likely to be based in school but you’ll have a good balance of training sessions outside the classroom, whereas a traditional PGCE will divide your time between university and school. Some distance learning PGCEs are also available. Full-time PGCEs take one (or, in special cases where extra subject knowledge is built into the programme, two) years.

Employment-based routes include the graduate and registered teacher programmes (GTP and RTP) and are for people who want to change to a teaching career and need to earn while they train. Ideally applicants should have some prior teaching experience. On the GTP scheme applicants are employed by a school as an unqualified teacher and undertake on-the-job training to attain qualified teacher status (QTS). The RTP programme is similar, but applicants do not need to hold a full degree to apply. The GTP programme usually takes one year and the RTP two years.

Facts and figures about the different ITT routes.

Choosing a course provider

If you are choosing a course provider, key things to consider are:

• Support and guidance. No course provider will launch you into the classroom at the beginning of your course without preparation and guidance, but even with several weeks of study behind you that first step into the classroom will test your nerves. Find out in advance what support you’ll receive from tutors and school staff.
• Location. Many NQTs find their first post in the area where they complete their ITT course, particularly because teaching practice often brings up opportunities for permanent jobs. However, if you train in an area where teaching posts are oversubscribed you should be prepared to move. Try having a look through the list of local authorities.
• Quality. The Training and Development Agency for Schools has information online about performance profiles, including the percentage of students who gained QTS and teaching posts as well as the entry qualifications of successful applicants.

Professional and postgraduate courses: what’s the difference?

All primary or secondary PGCE courses, whether the professional or postgraduate certificate in education, will qualify you to teach in state schools. So what is the distinction between professional and postgraduate?

Traditionally the acronym PGCE stood for Postgraduate Certificate in Education. However, recent higher education regulations dictate that a course can now only be described as 'postgraduate' if if it is at masters or doctoral level. Courses which are pitched at batchelor level have now been renamed as 'Professional Certificates in Education'. Many institutions have introduced an option so that students can choose which award to aim for once they have started their course.

Teaching as a masters level profession

The Government's Children's Plan, published in December 2007, announced its intention to make teaching a masters level profession as part of a range of measures to improve children's care and education by 2020. Increasingly, entrants to PGCE courses are choosing the postgraduate qualification rather than the professional qualification.

The new Masters in Teaching and Learning (MTL) degree will be launched in 2010 and many new teachers will embark on this course in their early years of teaching. Those with a Postgraduate Certificate as opposed to a Professional Certificate will be able to seek advanced standing on the MTL.

We would like to thank Professor Roger Woods, the executive dean of the faculty of education, law and social sciences at Birmingham City University for his help with this article.