School Placements
The University of Nottingham works with over 100 partnership schools and has a long history of an inclusive and quality assured partnership. Matching students to schools for the first placement is done before you begin the course. All students will have a second school placement and a number of factors will be considered to ensure that you have a variety of experiences whilst on the PGCE course. It could be that if you had a more rural school for one of your placements you will be placed in an urban school for the other. If you have said that you have caring responsibilities this will be taken into consideration in terms of the level of responsibility you have.
You should expect that you will have to travel to your placement schools and that your schools may not be local to where you live. You will also be expected to follow the routines of the teachers in your placement school which will include meetings before and after the school day.
Our partnership schools extend across Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire, Staffordshire and Lincolnshire and therefore you should be prepared to travel. If you do not drive, you may find it easier to secure accommodation nearer Nottingham city centre as schools are located in suburbs and usually require a connection from the city centre. Please do not buy any travel cards until you know where your placements are located.
There is no direct financial support allocated to travel expenses but the majority of students will be entitled to a maintenance loan and many will receive a bursary. In some cases students with cars are willing to share travel arrangements.
You can be assured that the tutors do consider the placements very carefully and your existing skill set may be considered in relation to the tutors’ knowledge of schools’ specialisms and developments. In order to arrange your placement it is important that we have up to date personal details, such as address and contact information. To that end, we will be asking you to complete a personal/travel information form so that we take these into account when arranging your placements.