PGCE Secondary (Religious Education)

The BGU Secondary Religious Education PGCE will equip you to become an outstanding secondary school teacher. You will be encouraged to engage creatively and critically with a wide range of religions, philosophies, and current social and ethical issues, developing your own subject knowledge and considering ways of exploring these issues with young people. The BGU ITE partnership is a close working relationship between schools, colleges, and the University. Your school based RE mentor will provide ongoing developmental feedback, and help you to practically apply your thinking and learning about religious education pedagogy. In addition to university based sessions you will participate in field visits and school based experiences as well as developing your own subject knowledge and learning the craft of the classroom. You will also be encouraged to explore your own personal life stance and how this impinges on classroom practice.

You will consider the broader aspects of teaching, contexts for learning, the latest government initiatives and contemporary issues in teaching, learning and assessment. You will also work alongside trainee teachers of other subjects to consider cross-curricular aspects of education. These topics will introduce you to your career in the teaching profession.

Throughout your year of study, you will explore all aspects of your subject. This includes those areas that are your strengths, as well as areas you may need to improve upon. You will study how pupils learn in your subject area, how you need to assess them and how to keep abreast of new developments within your subject. You will learn how to plan and deliver topics in ways that include all types of learners in meaningful ways.

You will spend two thirds of the year in partner schools and other educational settings gaining rich and varied experiences designed to support meeting the standards for Qualified Teacher Status (QTS). Working with peers, tutors and school-based colleagues, you will develop your abilities to promote effective learning among 11-19 year olds. You will also have opportunities to gain experience of the key stages before and after the ones in which you will qualify.

This course is demanding and stimulating. We aim for you to be prepared to take responsibility for your own learning, be open to creative and innovative ideas, and be competent, reflective practitioners both in your training year and beyond. Success on the course means you will have completed a postgraduate (with 60 credits at Masters level) or professional graduate qualification, have met all the Qualified Teacher Status Standards and be ready to start the next year as a Newly Qualified Teacher.