Cob Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 Hello, I currently work in a college and teach technical theatre for 1 hour a week. I have a degree in Stage management and technical theatre and I am wanting to get a relevent teacher training qualification. Does anyone know if there is a PGCE/or any teaching qualification in stagemanagement/technical theatre . I have been looking for a while and have struggled to find anything. Any info on this would be greatly appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 You won't. If you have a degree then the PGCE that is available from quite a few places is non-subject specific. It teaches you to teach what you already know. If you think about it, if you want to take your own ability and educational status forward in a subject. you do an Masters - teaching for kids in full time education, under 16 is something designed for the National Curriculum, but Technical Theatre is too narrow a strand to have a specific teaching programme designed around it, so the PGCE/CertEd courses are ideal to get you qualified teacher status. They are incredibly dull in content - and very often padded out with business content, often pinched by the teachers who usually are holders of MBa qualification so loved by management. The PGCE/certEd programmes are for people who already have specialisms - so expect to work alongside doctors, nurses, prison officers, hairdressers, tanker captains, helicopter pilots, whiskey distillers, oil rig supervisors and all sorts of quite interesting people. In fact - the only thing that these qualifications have to make them interesting are the people! It will take you a year or two to do the course, and you use your existing teaching hours as the evidence for it. If your college are typical, they'll probably fund you too! So you get paid, get a qualification, and the only downside is the terminal boredom of the classes. We used to take bets on the time our teacher would say "now, in groups with the white board, lets discuss the scenario and one person can report back" - this she did every time she got to the bottom of her page of notes, looking at her watch. I suspect that the reason there doesn't seem to be any teaching qualifications for people with specific skills is that there would be too many varieties, but most importantly, these people already have houses and financial responsibilities that prevent them going away to study, and it would also be a barrier to their career path. For an hour or two many colleges run their own City & Guild teaching qualifications, but to be able to teach more hours, the PGCE/CertEd route is where to go, I think. I think I did mine in 1994? I do remember the time on the old C&G I did - and I learned a lot of useful things, but the PGCE was in honesty, rubbish - and as by that time I'd got used to how education works, it was easy to meet the requirements - which frankly didn't help me teach at all! However - once the bit of paper was in my grasp, I got given more hours, more responsibility and life was a lot better! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cob Posted November 13, 2012 Author Share Posted November 13, 2012 Hello, Thanks for that really interesting. I wasnt aware that there was a generic PGCE, I thought they were all specific to a course. Thanks I will look into this, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kerry davies Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 Take a look HERE! to begin with. I did a Further and Adult Education Teaching Certificate, C&G 7307 Stage 2, before they shut it down and the FAETC course had everything from a plumber and a gas man to an environmentalist and an outdoor activities leader on it. I could do a bridging course and then a one year part-time Cert Ed if I wished but as Paul says, it wouldn't give me anything like the experience of actually teaching has done and I am too old to bother nowadays. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 Most colleges will offer a link to them because they need to show the powers that fund that they are training their staff - and many now have rules on how many hours people can teach before they need a piece of paper of one type or another. Usually, they run these things under a franchise system with a friendly uni - often combining with colleges they are usually in competition with. The key factor is that to train as a 'proper' teacher you must be teaching! So you try ideas out on your class and see how they work, report back, modify, analyse what happened and evaluate how you did. Some will be with a supervisor/assessor present, but most not. The most interesting thing we ever did was stand in for one of our classmates and teach their subject, by doing quality research and prep. We taught a class in a very different subject to our own, to improve what really were our blagging skills! I did really well doing an RT session and test for St John Ambulance people, and really, really badly doing some poor girls hair - I have no idea how they got the knots out! At my college, three of us did ours at the same time - and on completion, we all got an extra salary increment - although a friend doing his now has been told that for budgetary reasons and the expense of the course - he won't now! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MarkPAman Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 I currently work in a college and teach technical theatre for 1 hour a week. It will take you a year or two to do the course, and you use your existing teaching hours as the evidence for it. Be careful here. 1 hour a week is not enough evidence. Or at least, it wasn't when I did it. I ended up having to invent my own extra course and run it free for a few keen students to get my hours up. Only really turned out to be a few Saturday afternoons, and take them to a couple of gigs I was working on, but was something of a PITA to sort out at the time. So check the number of teaching hours needed at the start, rather than find out 2/3 way through! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the kid Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 If I remember "we" ask for 80 hours, or 1 btech unit equilivent, it might be 120 hour. However IIR if you want to do PGCE and work in education they have to provide the hours so you amy end up doing something like maths or the like. At least that is what we have. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
paulears Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 yep that's how my old college did it for their staff. I had plenty of hours so for me - it wasn't a huge burden, but once your colleagues get to work - they'll give you lots of their classes (for free of course) - but as you'll be dreaming up great exciting stuff to experiment with, it's worth a few freebies. I'd avoid the maths if at all possible - very difficult to do interesting stuff - and the kids always hate it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
indyld Posted November 13, 2012 Share Posted November 13, 2012 If you are interested in moving further into teaching, I would look out for any full time Technical Demonstrator or similar roles in an institution that deals in technical theatre proper AND is looking to train/certificate all their teaching staff/demonstrators. That way, you can get plenty of hours and you should be able to do your qualification on the "company time." This is assuming that your current place won't do your cert/give you more hours and you wish to move on. Promote any proper industry experience (real, rather than your degree) and indicate your interest and experience in teaching so far. Having recently dealt with Tech Dem / Tech appointments in the subject, I can't stress the industry experience enough in the decision making process. If you spend time getting/pay to study for your PGCE/Cert Ed yourself, you still are not guaranteed another teaching job at the end of it. If you can get someone to take you on as a Tech Dem, you are likely to get the cert as part of your CPD. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ninjadingle Posted November 14, 2012 Share Posted November 14, 2012 IMO if you want to look at getting qualified then look at PTLLS (Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector - often called "Petals"). With 1 hour a week hands on teaching it'll give you the tools to think about lesson planning, resources and schemes of work without too many hassles, it should only take a few weeks and is the first step on the ladder, the next being CTLLS (Cerificate - called "kettles") which takes about a year, then DTLLS (Diploma, "dettles") which is an extra year. With your degree you can gain PGCE as part of the DTLLS course.Talk to your college - if your post is a teaching one I'd be very surprised if its not part of your job spec to hold a teaching qualification or work towards one. As already mentioned they probably run these courses in house so wouldn't cost you very much at all! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
the kid Posted November 14, 2012 Share Posted November 14, 2012 CTTLS is pointless IMHO PTTLS then DTTLS is the way to go Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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