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higher diploma for secondary teaching

  • 03-02-2010 1:22am
    #1
    farreller24
    Closed Accounts Posts: 64 ✭✭


    Hi all,

    Was just looking for a bit of advice.....have a 2.1 degree that enables me to teach biology and JC science, got it recognised by the teaching council last year....am a bit unsure what the nest step is. I have no teaching experience....so should I try and get that first or just apply for the hdip and hope I get it??

    My dilemma is that I am in a permanent job in a hospital and am reluctant to pack it in at the mo....bills still have to be paid.....but if I got the course I would. I don't think I would be able to get much time off work for experience though. Also how would I even go about getting experience? Any help would be very much appreciated....Thanks ;)


Comments

  • #2
    pathway33
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 2,229 ✭✭✭pathway33


    If you are applying for the PGDE (they don't call them HDips anymore) through www.pac.ie then experience will count for nothing from the september 2011 intake on - which is the earliest you could get into one of those degrees. You used to get points for experience but this is the last year of that. So that puts you at an advantage compared to people with a 2.2 degree and some experience.

    Now the lack of experience is only irrelevant for UCD, UCC, NUIG, NUIM.

    Trinity College Dublin take applicants by interview so experience is an advantage here. DCU do a 2 year part-time PGDE but I think you need to be already working in a school but not sure how flexible they are on that.

    You could try googling GTTR for the UK PGCE's. They give a grant of £6,000 i think for biology. Some may do distance learning but you still need to do your 24 or so weeks in a school broken up over 2 or 3 terms.

    Be careful if you are calculating your points on www.pac.ie . They have a new system from this year so that say 63% in an honours degree would have got you 41 points before. Now it gets you 43

    Open University do distance learning PGCEs too.

    If you are short points you can get 6 extra for a masters or 3 for a higher/graduate diploma.

    So in a nutshell you don't need experience if you are going for any of the first 4 colleges mentioned above although it would be no harm even to get a few days observation to make sure you're sure.

    Oh yeah and if you think you need extra points and say you do a masters starting in september 2010 finishing in june 2011 i don't think you can use that for the september 2011 PGDE entry. Think it can only be used for the following year because applications close around 1st december and you have to have your results by then


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