PGCE (Mathematics)
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
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 aim of the Mathematics course is to help you to become an effective secondary school teacher of mathematics. To help you achieve this goal, we teach you through a variety of styles, paces, approaches and presentations in the hope that you will use a similar variety when you teach. Learning mathematics can be challenging. It requires concentration, and can feel like hard work, but it also has the ability to surprise, and to give a sense of achievement and enjoyment. Learning to be a teacher will be all of these things too. Teaching on the PGCE course is strongly informed by the mathematics education research which takes place in the department, some of which is undertaken collaboratively with partner schools. Course tutors are active researchers and experienced in writing for interns and practising teachers of mathematics.
The course aims to:
- provide mathematical experiences on which you can reflect as a learner, and relate these to planning for teaching;
- offer insights into children’s learning and, through recognition of their particular conceptions, to help you plan your teaching accordingly;
- provide skills and experiences in planning, teaching and managing effective lessons through which learners can gain mathematical knowledge, awareness and understanding;
- help you to reflect on and analyse your teaching, and make decisions about how to modify and adapt it to be more effective for pupils’ learning;
- introduce you to a range of resources, research and theoretical perspectives on which to base your growth as a teacher; and
- enable you to develop skills and experience in ICT that will support your teaching and its management.
The main themes of the course are:
- Developing reflective teaching (DRT): in which you think about your practice in a professional, developmental manner;
- Learners’ mathematical development (LMD): in which you think about mathematics and lessons from the point of view of how learners think;
- Teaching and learning a topic (TLT): in which you learn how to structure mathematical knowledge so that your teaching is effective; and
- Planning and management (PM): in which you look at planning and managing lessons, classrooms, professional work and yourself.
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.
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