Start date:September
Institutional code:O10
Duration:1 year
Course type:Full Time
Fees per year 2025/26 entry:£8,000 Full Time
Additional costs per year:DBS Check - £50
How to Apply:To apply for teacher training courses in England you should use Apply for teacher training, a new GOV.UK service. Apply for teacher training is easy to use and gives clear guidance to help potential teachers make strong applications. To learn more about the new service and to get help with your application, visit Get into Teaching.
Delivery Method:Face-to-face via Lectures, Seminars and Tutorials
Your PGCE Pre-service in Teacher Training (Lifelong Learning) is an award of the University of Huddersfield
If you’re looking to progress into a career teaching in the Lifelong Learning Sector, including sixth form and further education colleges, adult education and a wide range of other training and educational settings, then this course could be ideal for you. We welcome applicants with industrial skills and/or relevant academic qualifications and a passion for teaching and training others.
Why Lifelong Learning?
Upon successful completion of this course, you’ll be eligible to proceed, following a process of professional formation through the Society for Education and Training to gain Qualified Teacher Learning and Skills (QTLS) status. This is the full professional status for teachers in the Lifelong Learning Sector.
On this course you’ll have the opportunity to develop the skills to play a full part in teaching and curriculum development. While you study you’ll focus on your particular subject specialist area, alongside general teaching in the lifelong learning sector.
A significant amount of your learning takes place whilst on placement. You’ll have the opportunity to benefit from being able to observe experienced teachers, gain practical hands-on experience and to be mentored to help you develop into a successful and effective teacher.
Core Modules
Research Informed Teaching Learning and Assessment
This module aims to develop your understanding of how people learn in the Lifelong Learning Sector and of the role of assessment in enabling learning and achievement. It introduces theories and principles of learning and assessment and develops your ability to apply research evidence in designing effective learning and assessment strategies and materials. It seeks to develop positive approaches to the management of group and individual behaviours and promotes an inclusive approach to teaching, learning and assessment. It introduces the role of key transferable skills and the ways in which people learn English, Maths and digital skills. The module is assessed by means of a practical micro-teaching assignment and the design of an intervention, strategy, activity or resource, underpinned by an understanding of key principles of teaching, learning and assessment.
Becoming a Subject Specialist Teacher
The module reviews your practice as a trainee teacher. It explores your teaching values, knowledge of your subject specialism, and your knowledge and understanding of how you’re learning to teach. You’ll have the opportunity to learn how to identify and respond to students’ needs, and how to use suitable teaching, learning and assessment strategies to develop inclusive teaching and learning environments. You’ll have the chance to evaluate your teaching effectiveness and develop as a reflective practitioner as well as engage in personal and professional development planning, against the appropriate Professional Standards, to recognise and develop relevant subject specialist knowledge, behaviours and skills. This will include further development of English, Maths and digital skills for you and your students.
Being a Subject Specialist Teacher
This module builds on previous generic and subject specialist development in two ways. Firstly, it contributes to your development of more advanced strategies and methods for promoting learning and, secondly, it involves a focus on specific specialist areas and the critical analysis subject specialist pedagogy. The module seeks to enhance your ability to reflect critically on, and to evaluate, teaching and learning; by recognising particular curriculum and professional challenges; and by enabling you to develop critical responses to these concerns in sophisticated, innovative and creative ways. Key learning activities of the module are practical teaching experience and the engagement with other specialists through collaborative practice. The module is assessed through a Teaching Portfolio and a Conference Paper dealing with teaching and learning in the specialist subject.
Please note – this module requires some attendance at the University of Huddersfield campus. You will be informed of the exact dates during the course.
Optional Modules
Optional modules will be decided each year based on student demand:
Curriculum and Context
English as an Additional Language (EAL): Curriculum and Context
SEND: Curriculum and Context
EDI and Social Justice: Curriculum and Context
During your time on the course, you will be required to complete 250 hours on a compulsory placement, which will include 150 hours of teaching.
You’ll gain valuable insight into the role of a sixth-form or further education teacher, supported by a subject mentor within the educational institution. They will help you refine your teaching practice through observations, planning meetings, weekly tutorials, detailed reports, and in-depth lesson evaluations.
Previous trainees have been placed in a range of educational institutions including colleges, work-based learning providers and in offender and community learning settings.
Students have gone on to work as further and higher education lecturers. Others have taken the opportunity to engage in further studies such as relevant MA or MSc courses at university.
Please note that the course does not confer Qualified Teacher Status for those working or intending to work in schools, although currently it is possible for people with QTLS to obtain work in maintained schools as a qualified teacher.
The focus of this course is on practical teaching. You gain experience of learning and teaching alongside other professionals with support from tutors and work based mentors. You will gain competence in planning, teaching and learning; and in working with students; with assessment of your progress taking place in formal classrooms and in student-centred learning situations.
The Education and Training Consortium (ETC) was formally constituted in 2001 , a pioneering collaborative partnership between FE and the University of Huddersfield focusing on teacher education awards for the ‘Lifelong Learning Sector’. Geographically, ETC members are dispersed across the north of England from Hull to Liverpool, but there are member institutions as far afield as Northumberland, Norfolk and Essex. The colleges partners are the key sites of practice and offer a huge store of knowledge and expertise. The University of Huddersfield retains responsibility for academic standards and quality assurance; Key beneficiaries are the students who, in this case, are both in-service and pre-service trainee teachers – beyond whom are the thousands of FE learners they teach.
Applications accepted via UCAS/DfE (contact HE Student Services for further information)
UK degree (normally 2:2 or above) or equivalent related to your specialist area
Relevant work experience in some specialist subject areas
Level 2 Maths and English
In addition you must also:
provide Disclosure and Barring Service (DBS) check and health clearances
provide two satisfactory references
complete a satisfactory interview
You will normally be offered a place on the Professional Graduate Certificate in Education. Alternatively, you may be considered for a place on the Postgraduate Certificate in Education or the Postgraduate Diploma in Education (Advanced PGCE in Lifelong Learning).