PCGE With QTS (Primary and Early Years)

Course Overview: The Primary PGCE is a School-Based Initial Teacher Training route to Qualified Teacher Status, with a Post Graduate Certificate in Education. This course allows you to specialise in age phases 3-7 or 5-11 and we offer both SCITT and School Direct (tuition fee) routes.

The training programme at Two Mile Ash has been developed over a number of years, ensuring that the very best opportunities are offered to our trainee teachers. The programme is highly respected and our graduates are greatly sought after for teaching positions within the area.The programme consists of three main elements:

Trainee teachers are immersed in the school environment right from the outset, meaning that they ‘live and breathe’ real-life teaching from day one. Every trainee is carefully matched to a single class in their ‘home school’ where they work and train for most of the year, becoming a real and valued part of the school team. During the first half of the Spring Term, all trainees are given the opportunity to experience an alternate key stage in a different school, after which they return to their home school for the remainder of the programme.

Every trainee is linked with a school based trainer (SBT) who acts as their mentor and guide for the year. The SBT will be based in the trainee’s home school and will often (although not always) be the teacher in whose class the trainee is based. As every trainee has a personal mentor, the training programme is truly personalised and is shaped to meet the needs and circumstances of each individual. The SBT works closely with the trainee in school: carrying out lesson observations, setting training targets and helping to organise in-school training opportunities which will enhance and develop the trainee’s practice.

Core training takes place at the Partnership’s dedicated training centre and provides innovative, inspirational and hands-on training in everything from safeguarding to subject knowledge; behaviour management to building resilience; time management to stress management, and much more. These sessions provide an opportunity for the cohort to come together and share their experiences while learning from our expert trainers. Our trainees value the ‘headspace’ that these sessions provide, allowing them to reflect deeply on their practice and learn new skills and pedagogies which they can take back to their schools.

During the Autumn Term, training session take place twice a week (Thursday and Friday), allowing trainees to build a secure base of theory and understanding, which is slowly integrated into their classroom practice. During the cross phase teaching practice, trainees attend core training once per week on a Friday. In the second half of the Spring Term, training is offered on Thursday afternoons and all day Friday and, by the Summer Term, trainees are fully integrated in school and are placed full-time in their home schools, building up to their final teaching practice and assessment.

All trainees are given the opportunity to work towards 60 Master-level credits and the award of a Post Graduate Certificate in Education, delivered by Birmingham City University.

All BCU lectures and seminars are delivered at the TMA dedicated training facility by experienced BCU academic staff. The combination of higher level academic study with the hands-on, practical nature of our school-led programme gives our trainees the perfect balance of theory and practice, making for well-rounded, informed and inspirational teachers.

Trainees are required to write three assignments, which are assessed and moderated by the team at BCU and lead to an award of 60 M-Level credits.