BEd Primary Education (with QTS)

Carly: My favourite thing about teaching might sound a bit strange, but I really love Monday mornings. So sometimes on a Sunday you think, "Oh, I just don't want to go to work," and that's a normal feeding that everyone feels, but as soon as I walk through the door and the children are happy to see me, and they're skipping down the path, ready to find out what's happening that day, I'm ready for them. And I'm ready to see their progress in their learning.

Paul: When I'm doing PE with the children, and we're learning how to catch and they catch the ball for the first time, a little girl ran up to me last week and she was like, "I caught it, Mr. Dixon. I caught it." It's those moments why I do teaching.

Carly: I looked around lots of different universities, and I liked the size of Marjon. It felt really warm and welcoming when I walked in, and I quite liked that it was around that quad in the middle. And I saw lots of other students chilling out in the quad, and having their lunch and walking between lectures, and I thought that's a place that I'd like to be.

Paul: The most helpful part for me, that Marjon helped me with my teaching, was the placement, and it was allowing and working alongside me to produce the placements where I felt I really wanted to develop my own skills.

Carly: I had three really good placements and really different placements. They made sure I was in different key stages each time. So my first one was in key stage two, then key stage one, and then a different class within key stage one, which was really, really useful, because I could see the breadth of the curriculum and see how children progress through different skills. I also really enjoyed the fact that the groups in the seminars were really small. And I got to know my fellow students in my group very, very well, and we stayed in that group the whole way through the three years. So I felt very secure and comfortable to share ideas and any problems I thought I had. If I was to give advice to a new teacher starting the primary course At Marjon, I would say make the most of your placements and the most of all of the experience that the teachers have there. You'll have newly qualified teachers within your school. You'll have teachers with real specialisms in their subjects, and teachers who have just a wealth of experience because of the years they've been teaching. Ask them questions, shadow what they do, and find out as much as you can, because it'll all help when you finally have your very own class.

Paul: If someone was worrying about whether it's Marjon or another university, I would say, I ended up choosing Marjon. It was down to the sizes of the seminars and the lecture sizes, and the ability to have that one-on-one contact time with the tutors, when I was in dissertation writing, as well. There was every opportunity that we had there. And you could take as much time as you needed with the tutors who are really available. I think it was that availability that really pulled me to Marjon. And that was why I ended up choosing Marjon, it was down to the sizes of the seminars, the lecture sizes and that availability to have one-on-one contact time with the tutors, even when I was doing dissertation writing as well. So that's why I would recommend someone else go to Marjon.

Carly: If someone was sitting on the fence about going to Marjon and training to be a teacher, I would say, think about what you really want and do the best thing for you. But if you want somewhere that's small and welcoming and really supportive, and you can get the most out of your course and the most out of your lecturers, then I would recommend Marjon.