What qualifications do you need to be an elementary teacher?

What qualifications do you need to become an Art teacher in England?

• Ever since I can remember I wanted to be a teacher. When I did my GCSEs I knew exactly what pass rate I would need to take the A levels to be a teacher. To make a long story short, my chemistry teacher lied about my course work and as a result I lost my chance to be a teacher because you cant retake double science where I live. 7 yrs later, I am still interested in teaching and would like to teach secondary school pupils art... what qualifications do I need?

• Answer:

  I am currently training to be a teacher. You do need to hold GCSE c passes in Maths, English and Science - it may well be worth looking into resits if you have not got a C pass in one of these. Then, if you wished to teach Art at secondary level, you would be expected to have at least a degree in that subject (or a degree in a related subject and an A-level in art). Then, you would need to follow one of the following routes: a) GTP - Basically - learning to teach whilst getting a salary (which think is £12k?) - learning whilst 'on the job'. This has it positives - you get to earn, and some say it is better to just 'get stuck in' and start teaching straight away. Having said that, we have GTP students in the school I am placed at at the moment, and they are annoyed as they feel they have more work than us. b) PGCE. This is the more usual way of doing it. Good news is, you get a bursary now to sustain you while you learn - I think for Art it might be £6K (check it out). You are also entitled to student loan of some nature. Basically, depending on the place you take your PGCE, you will have roughly 6 - 8 weeks in faculty, learning theory about your subject and how to teach it, and then the rest of the time will be spent in school, building up to teaching. I hope this helps, good luck, these things take perseverance, but if its what you want to do, go for it!