Professional Graduate Diploma in Education (Primary) (Taught)

PGDE Primary is for graduates who wish to enter the teaching profession at primary school level. This programme is one route to qualified teacher status in Scotland.

The PGDE programme is academically and professionally focused, drawing upon the expertise of its faculty and institute. The programme is located within the Institute for Education, Teaching and Leadership (IETL). The Institute draws on a values-led approach to teaching, research and innovation, through the strength of the relationships with our partners, both locally and globally.

In particular, the Institute has expertise and professional impact in:

• the changing role of teachers and leaders in a contemporary world

• learning for sustainability

• outdoor learning

• widening participation

• digital literacies

• areas of curriculum development like STEM and STEAM education, all of which align with the GTCS Professional Standards

This is an intensive programme of study with half of this time spent in placement schools and the other half spent studying on the University of Edinburgh campus. Through graduate-level study of education and professional placements, you will engage in being and becoming a teacher in Scotland.

The programme is designed to develop critically informed and confident teachers to meet the needs of our children and young people in the 21st Century. The PGDE programme aims to capture an interdependent view of the world and a deep commitment to sustainability and social justice for all. To achieve this, the pedagogies employed aim to provoke a cultural shift away from transmissive teaching to something more agential and socially transformative.

Through our university-led and school-based placement, our teaching and learning aim to engage with and challenge assumptions. We encourage and support our PGDE students to look inwards to their beliefs and assumptions and outwards to wider educational practices and policies, both nationally and globally.