PGCE (English)
The Postgraduate Certificate in Education (PGCE) is a one-year course that offers you the opportunity to train to teach the secondary age group in one of the leading educational establishments in the country.
Admission via UK Government's Department for Education. See PGCE webpage for vacancies and deadlines.
- Expected length:
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- Full time: 12 months
- Expected start date:
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- Full time:
- English language level:
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- Higher level required
Students working in the library (University of Oxford Images / Oxford Atelier)
About the course
The Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2025 places the University of Oxford’s Department of Education as first in Britain for Degrees in Education for the thirteenth year running. Over many years, it has consistently received the highest possible designation (Outstanding) from Ofsted in inspections. The University of Oxford’s Department of Education has a long history in initial teacher education, dating back to 1892.
The department works in partnership with over 37 secondary comprehensive schools in Oxfordshire and neighbouring counties, with most being within 30 miles of Oxford. The programme has been developed with colleagues from Oxfordshire partnership schools and covers the key professional skills of:
- lesson planning and preparation
- assessment, recording and reporting
- responding to individual learning needs
- classroom and behaviour management.
The course works on an internship model (the Oxford Internship Scheme) which recognises the different roles of university and schools in teacher education and the need for a truly collaborative partnership. Such collaboration involves joint responsibility within the partnership for the planning, delivery and assessment of the programme. Student teachers are known as interns during the PGCE course.
In addition to being awarded the PGCE qualification, successful interns are also recommended for Qualified Teacher Status, which indicates that they have met the requirements of the Government’s Teachers’ Standards.
The PGCE Internship programme in English is designed to prepare you to teach the subject in comprehensive schools. It aims to help you make the complex transition from having been a successful student of English in higher education to becoming a successful school teacher.
The English programme has been developed with colleagues from our partnership schools and is based upon the following core principles:
- the view that the creative, imaginative and expressive aspects of the subject have a key role in pupils’ learning;
- the view that English teachers should write for pleasure, read widely for enjoyment and participate in cultural events in their school and in the wider community;
- the view that English teachers should share their experiences as writers, readers, speakers and listeners with their pupils;
- the understanding that writing is a practice that covers a wide range of processes, functions, rhetorical situations, and categories of discourse;
- a broad view of what constitutes text and the understanding that technological innovation can change both what is considered as text, how text is prepared and how it may be interpreted;
- the importance of literature in the development and understanding of human cultures and in personal, social and ethical development;
- the importance of diversity in reading practices and the value of a range of interpretative approaches to texts;
- an understanding of the English language at word, sentence and text level;
- recognition and respect for varieties of language and languages;
- a belief that English, as a subject, involves the development of social relationships and collaborative work; and
- the inter-relationship of speaking, listening, reading and writing.
English teaching in England is subject to continuous change and development. The Internship English programme is intended to enable beginning teachers to meet the challenges of change confidently and creatively.
Course structure
The course begins with an orientation experience in September spending three days in a primary school of your choice.
This is followed by the first week in the University of Oxford’s Department of Education. The rest of the autumn term is made up of joint weeks with two days spent in the University and three days in school. You will be attached to the same state secondary school for the majority of the year, which makes it possible for you to get to know teachers and pupils in the school and to understand the school’s policies and practices.
The spring term consists primarily of school experience and for the summer term, interns move to a second school so that they have the opportunity to consolidate and extend their understanding and experience of learning and teaching.
This course structure reflects the internship model in that it is designed to:
- enable interns to become fully integrated into one school over a long period;
- enable interns to learn about their own teaching in the context of the wider school, rather than focusing initially on their own classroom and only later widening their view;
- allow schools to offer coherent and challenging professional development programmes over the course of the long placement, and in the short placement focus on preparation for continuing professional development;
- enable school-based mentors to see interns’ development from the start of the course to a position of competence; and
- offer interns the opportunity to encounter a new school context at a time of the course when they are ready to make critical comparisons.
The Professional Tutor responsible for interns at the school co-ordinates school-based activities related to general educational issues, called the school professional development programme (PDP).
Some aspects of the PDP are planned and organised for all interns by university tutors, who take responsibility for particular issues. The detailed programme for the interns in each school, however, is organised by the Professional Tutor and General Tutor for that school.
Core components
You will undertake two interrelated course components: curriculum subject work and the professional development programme (PDP). You will also complete two written assignments.
Course details
Entry requirements
For entry in 2026-27