Hdip and children

Chicke

I've a good chance Of getting the PGDEin one of the colleges next year .my husband things the two year part time dcu or hibernia college course would be more suitable because ive two kids in primary school education.but I think that the hibernian is untested ,the dcu is on at the wrong time for me and the one year course would mean I would be out faster.
It would mean kids in school in morning and then with childminder in afternoon.
Has anyone been in this position.
It would mean not being able to study until bout half eight or nine evenings until kids in bed and then weekends
Is thus feasible?
What time would I be able to collect them evenings
Which college finishes earlier in evenings?

Happyzebra

I did the Pgde in ucc. Insane work load! But I was childless at the time and could put everything into it... Attended all lectures ect. I know people who had kids and got through it... Got 2:1s. The thing is many people do not attend the lectures... Maybe a couple a week. You have to attend your tutorial which is once a week. A lot of people seem to meet in groups and swop prepared essays which they learn off for exams. I knew one girl who had children and she attended very few lectures ( and didnt take notes when she did!) night before he exams saw her ringing people begging for essays... Which she got! She graduated with a 2:1 Your teaching practice determines your overall grade. There is a lot of work involved in this. There is a reflective journal which will wreck your head!! You can get through the course but it is VERY stressfull. Hope this helps. Good luck with it!

Forgot to add. There is a reflective practice lecture on fridays which runs for about 6 weeks... Dont bother attending... I did... Waste of time. The stuff is covered in your tutorial anyhow. Only about ten people used to show up for it out of 220!

highly1111

Some people make out that the dip is the hardest most time consuming course in the world. It's not. I did mine when my baby was 13 weeks. I did it in Ucd and to be honest i only attended about half of the lectures and still got a very high 2-1 and an A for my teaching practise. Generally college is over at 5 but there is one late night for special method subjects - go to the Ucd pgde thread and someone might be able to tell you what the current timetable/night is for your subjects.

You won't need to study that much in the evenings - the one thing you will need to do is your lesson plans which are time consuming ESP at the start but then you'll soon rattle them off.

If you have afternoon childcare sorted you'll be absolutely fine. I got a huge amount of my work done in school as remember you only have 7 class periods a week so you've loads of free time in the mornings.

I'd defo go for the one year and get it over. It flies in and is a lovely career when you have children as there's a lovely work life balance.

Good luck.

ldoll

There are people talking about the PGED being turned into two yearsas of next year. I'm not 100% on it, but have heard a lot of people talking about it.
That was a major reason why I signed up for the Hibernia this year, although you are right, the Post Primary teaching is untested, but they have done well with the primary teaching.

Happyzebra

highly1111 wrote: »

Some people make out that the dip is the hardest most time consuming course in the world. It's not. I did mine when my baby was 13 weeks. I did it in Ucd and to be honest i only attended about half of the lectures and still got a very high 2-1 and an A for my teaching practise. Generally college is over at 5 but there is one late night for special method subjects - go to the Ucd pgde thread and someone might be able to tell you what the current timetable/night is for your subjects.

You won't need to study that much in the evenings - the one thing you will need to do is your lesson plans which are time consuming ESP at the start but then you'll soon rattle them off.

If you have afternoon childcare sorted you'll be absolutely fine. I got a huge amount of my work done in school as remember you only have 7 class periods a week so you've loads of free time in the mornings.

I'd defo go for the one year and get it over. It flies in and is a lovely career when you have children as there's a lovely work life balance.

Good luck.

Well done for accomplishing so much under the circumstances. I do think being highly organised helps... Not one of my talents. I could never have coped with a baby and the pgde but i suppose where all different.

Chicke

Thanks a mill:)

Rosita

Chicke wrote: »

I've a good chance Of getting the PGDEin one of the colleges next year .my husband things the two year part time dcu or hibernia college course would be more suitable because ive two kids in primary school education.but I think that the hibernian is untested ,the dcu is on at the wrong time for me and the one year course would mean I would be out faster.
It would mean kids in school in morning and then with childminder in afternoon.
Has anyone been in this position.
It would mean not being able to study until bout half eight or nine evenings until kids in bed and then weekends
Is thus feasible?
What time would I be able to collect them evenings
Which college finishes earlier in evenings?

I did the PGDE when I had three kids, but than again I have done eight years night study and two years full time from the last 10 years so I am quite practised at juggling these things. But it can be done. Much depends on what support you have.

You could consider the course in Trinity or Maynooth rather than UCD or DCU as they have people attend college only on certain days and school on the others. Though presumably the days in college are longer because of that, if you could arrange something for those days you're in college it would make life easy.

Be wary of any advice about missing lectures as part of the strategy. You'll always hear about the person who never showed up and ended up with grades absolutely off the scale, but you'll not hear much about the people who didn't show and ended up stressed out and not even being sure what assignments they had and then not doing so well. You can be sure those people existed as well.

In your circumstances you might have to unavoidably miss a lecture day anyway (kids sick etc.) if you are in UCD where you are on every afternoon (except Fridays which was just one in four when I was there) so best not to plan for it as you'll just miss more then.

The good news is that the college year flies and you certainly will not be studying all the time. In fact you'll do relatively little of that in the serious sense - there's only one exam and the rest are assignments, none of them enormously intelletcually taxing. The PGDE is not academically challenging as such. Learning to teach well is a practical challenge and a tough one. Or at least it was for me. And there is a lot riding on the teaching element of the course. But I found the year exaggerated in terms of busyness, and I obviously had a lot more on my plate at the time than probably most of the students on the course. But perhaps that was the reason it didn't bother me - I was used to having so many other things to consider, and often there is the paradox that having more time on your hands can cause you simply to waste more! But, for example, not being able to study or do coursework until 8.30 or 9pm would have been a luxury for me. It was often after 11pm before I'd get a minute's peace to do something.

One problem I had, and you will have too most likely, is that when you have kids you always tend to have to be gone once lectures are over. There's always the sense that you should be elsewhere and it often meant for me heading into college on a Saturday to go to the library rather than being able to hang around after lectures. And obviously you'll tend to finds that books in th elibrary are often gone too! It is a frustration to see a book that you know someone will probably use for about two hours is out on a three-week loan.

But in short if I can do it you or anybody else certainly can.

Chicke

Brill advice.thanks to everyone.will be looking at maynooth methinks as it's most accessible
Thanks again

Brookie123

Why do you think that the h.dip with Hibernia College is untested?

Rosita

Brookie123 wrote: »

Why do you think that the h.dip with Hibernia College is untested?

I'd have thought that was obvious, no? Nobody has graduated from the course yet so the view of potential employers of its graduates (in an already saturated market) has yet to be tested. At least I presume that would be the genesis of this comment.

ldoll

It is untested in Ireland, although they have been training primary school teachers for over a decade. They are fully recognised by the teaching council and when you graduate you hold the same qualification as those graduating from other colleges/universities.

There is a good possibility that some principals won't hold Hibernia in as high esteem as other colleges, but I do believe this will change slowly once the Hibernia graduates start going into the workforce.

seamulay

Chicke wrote: »

Brill advice.thanks to everyone.will be looking at maynooth methinks as it's most accessible
Thanks again

Hdip is going to be 2 years long everywhere from the next intake.

Powerhouse

seamulay wrote: »

Hdip is going to be 2 years long everywhere from the next intake.

According to the websites of UCD, UCC, NUIG and NUIM the PDE is a one-year course. In fact, the NUIG website specifically states that "the PDE Course for the 2012/13 cohort (which is the next intake) is proposed to commence on Monday Sept 3rd 2012, with a completion date in May 2013".

Just wondering what your source is for this news that contradicts all these websites? (It might well be just that they have not been updated to reflect this change)

seamulay

Powerhouse wrote: »

seamulay wrote: »

Hdip is going to be 2 years long everywhere from the next intake.

According to the websites of UCD, UCC, NUIG and NUIM the PDE is a one-year course. In fact, the NUIG website specifically states that "the PDE Course for the 2012/13 cohort (which is the next intake) is proposed to commence on Monday Sept 3rd 2012, with a completion date in May 2013".

Just wondering what your source is for this news that contradicts all these websites? (It might well be just that they have not been updated to reflect this change)

Indeed! Was not aware of needing sources and references to comment on
Boards. Anyways my friend is in ucd and they said this to him at induction. Plus I went for a interview for higher diploma in another discipline and they said this could be the last year that it could be completed in a year! Apparently it is for any higher diploma courses. BUT the name has now changed to professional diploma in education! Anyone else hear anything on this?

markievicz

Yep the name has changed to PDE (Professional Diploma in Education) to reflect the placing of the course as a level 8 course because PGDE infers a level 9 course. As for the changing of the duration of the course, we were told (in maynooth) that it wasnt changing for another few years at least BUT i remember hearing it was the 2014 intake that would start as a 2 year group. I could be completely wrong but I'll throw it in there.

Back to the topic.....
I don't have any kids but I'm working every weekend, give grinds during the week and I'm doing the course in Maynooth now. Its tough to manage sometimes time wise but it is managable. A friend of mine has young kids and is coping fine. It's all about the balance she says! Her kids go to a childminder after school until half 5 and she says it gives her plenty of time to get stuff done. As was said before, you'll have loads of time while you're in school. Maynooth students do Mon and Fri in school and you only have to do 8 classes so 4 + 4 so you'll have 5 or 6 free classes to do a bit of work. Lesson plans will be tough at the beginning but they'll get easier. It used to take me hours to do one and now it takes ten minutes! You won't have exams in the first semester and there are two in the second semester. There's a few essays but they are quite short and easy to get through. Classes start at 10 Tues, Weds and Thurs finish at the latest 5 Tues, 7 weds (if you do religion otherwise its 5.30) and then either 1 or 3 Thurs. I can't think of anything else to add but if you have any questions about the course in Maynooth PM me!:D