• Home
• Primary Teaching
• Secondary Teaching
  • Primary School Experience
  • Term Dates
  • Subjects
• Strands and Phases
• To do List
• Fees and Funding
• Fundamental English and Maths Skills
• Fitness to Teach Application
• Safeguarding
• Day One of the Course
• School Placements
• Well-being and Workload
• Internationally Educated Students
• Joining a Teaching Union
• Useful Information
• Contact Us

Welcome to the Secondary PGCE course

I am pleased to welcome you to the PGCE applicants' pre-course website. This site includes information that will help to prepare you for the course, we hope you will find it very helpful.

We are delighted that you have accepted a place on the Secondary PGCE programme at the University of Nottingham and look forward to working with you in 2025-26. The first day of the course is Wednesday 27 August 2025.

Please action the following:

• work through all tasks in the ‘To do List’ section 
• look at your subject page to see additional information about the subject-specific pre-course tasks you need to complete
• look at the primary experience page to complete an in person or virtual experience
• explore the Welcome to University of Nottingham Information Hub

In addition, you may also want to:

• gain as much experience as you can in a school setting
• read about current issues in education, for example in Schools Week or TES magazine
• enhance your understanding of school and the role of a teacher by engaging with these resources
• talk to people who are experienced teachers or have recently qualified about teaching and learning
• think about your own teaching and learning experience and your own philosophies about education
• think about how you will build skills and practices that will help you build resilience in your teaching career, engaging with the BRiTE materials will help with this

If you have any concerns or queries then please do contact us.

Best wishes 

Claire Clemmet
PGCE Secondary Course Leader