The Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) prepares graduates for a successful career in teaching with all graduates eligible for Qualified Teaching Status (QTS) on completion. Our course combines academic study and practical teaching experience, with 80% of your time spent in placement schools.

Gaining this qualification is the most established way of undertaking initial teacher training. At Bedfordshire, we have a long-established history of teacher training, offering a wide range of PGCE routes into teaching, and successful partnerships with over 500 schools and other educational organisations across the eastern region, a network that puts us ahead when it comes to national priorities, issues and developments in educational practice.

We are a Department for Education accredited provider of Initial Teacher Training (ITT).

We currently offer full- and part-time PGCE courses in:

• Primary Early Years (3-7)
• Primary Education (5-11)
• Secondary Art & Design
• Secondary Design & Technology
• Secondary Drama
• Secondary English
• Secondary Geography
• Secondary History
• Secondary Maths
• Secondary Physical Education
• Secondary Science with Biology
• Secondary Science with Chemistry
• Secondary Science with Physics

We will be introducing PGCE Secondary Computing for year of entry 2025; please register your interest in this PGCE at educationservices@beds.ac.uk

Hear from Abigail Collins, Secondary English PGCE

Key benefits

• You achieve Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) in one year.
• These are practice-led teaching courses where you complete 80% of your teacher training in the classroom at placements in our partner schools around the region.
• We offer both full- and part-time PGCE courses, with conferences and TED-style masterclasses taking place online as well as face to face - all helping you to fit study around your other commitments.
• All our teaching staff were previously employed as teachers, senior leaders and/or head teachers; we also have teaching staff who are school governors or active members of their national subject associations.
• Your placement-based mentor is usually a former student teacher of Bedfordshire so you are joining a large, lifelong community of teachers.
• For academic sessions, you are based at the University of Bedfordshire’s Bedford campus, which features bespoke facilities for teacher training including realistic mock classrooms.
• We are consistently sector leaders for employability and our courses have excellent retention.

To find out more about becoming a teacher, visit Get into Teaching

To find out more about the University of Bedfordshire’s routes into teaching, see individual PGCE courses or contact educationservices@beds.ac.uk

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