Hi 🙂

Yes, you’re right, once you have completed your A Levels (and have GCSE’s grade A-C in English, Maths and Science) you can then go on to do a 3 year B.E.D. Basically, it’s a degree in teacher training. You will spend time at uni being taught about how to plan lessons, behaviour management, will learn about how to teach all the national curriculum subjects etc and you will also apend a certain amount of weeks each year in schools teaching. Once you have this degree you will become a qualified primary school teacher and will be able to teach as soon as you graduate.

Alternatively, you can do a degree in another subject, such as History. It doesn’t really matter which subject you do but at least 50% of it has to be a subject relating to the school curriculum (i.e a national curriculum subject). Once you have graduated you can then go on to do a PGCE which is a post graduate course that train you to be a teacher. It lasts for one year (full time). It basically teaches you everything the B.E.D teaches you, but you only have one year to do it in!

The degree + PGCE is the more popular route. The benefits of this are that if you become a teacher and after a few years you hate it (this is common!) then you have your original degree to ‘fall back on’. Whereas if you have a B.E.D then you have nothing else to fall back on. You just have a teaching degree, and if you want a major career change then this degree probably wont be of much use to you.

The PGCE is very stressful as you only have a year to learn everything and it skims over a lot of things that you would study in depth with the three year B.E.D. Also, it is VERY competitive to get a place on the course, I think it’s something like 10 people apply for every place. A lot of unis stipulate that you must have extensive work with children to get palce on the course.

I would suggest that you get work experience in a school for 2 weeks (if you haven’t already), to see if you like it. This is also a minimum requirement for the B.E.D courses. Then if you really have your heart set on being teacher and couldn’t imagine yourself doing anything else then the 3 year B.E.D would be a good option as you get to learn everything in depth, and you get to spend more time in schools teaching and this would perhaps prepare you more and give you more knowledge/skills than the PGCE would.

However, the PGCE route is very respected and just because it is a shorter course, it doesn’t mean to say that graduates from the 3 year B.E.D make better teachers.

I also heard somewhere that the B.E.D’s are slowly being phased out as more employers prefer the degree + PGCE route (but this could just be hearsay)

Anyway I hope this helps!

(I hope I haven’t bored you too much- I have a tendency to ramble!)

Good luck! 🙂

You need to study A-Levels because they are what you need to start University. You then need a Degree with classification 2:2 or above in a mainstream subject or education. Then you study a PGCE for 1-year full time (you can usually get a bursary) before starting teaching as an NQT. After 1 year you gain QTS and you are a fully fledged teacher! You’ll need experience of working with children so working as a brownie leader, in childcare or volunteering at primary schools is best. It’s not a fall back career… I would recommend studying A-Levels and getting good grades then re-examining things if you’re unsure but want to start on a good salary.