You've got your offers. How do you choose where to train?
30th September 2026
Getting an offer for teacher training is an important moment. If you have applied to more than one provider, it can also be the point at which the decision becomes harder rather than easier. You may have several offers from courses that appear, on paper, to have much in common.
There probably isn't a formula for making the decision. Where you choose to train is likely to be influenced by a mixture of things: what you already believe about education, your experiences of schools, the people you have talked to, where you want to live and work, and the advice and opinions of people whose judgement you trust.
Friends and family can have a particularly strong influence. If you know teachers, you may already have quite a clear picture of what you think teaching is like and what you think good teacher training should involve. Someone else's experience can be useful, but it is worth remembering that their experience was their own. The training route, the school, the people and the circumstances may all have been different.
Your own experiences of education will matter too. Most people who become teachers have spent a long time in schools, first as pupils and later perhaps through university, employment or volunteering. Those experiences inevitably shape what you think schools should be like, what you value in education and the sort of teacher you would like to become.
These things can be more influential than a comparison of course features.
The way you experience the provider during the application process may also tell you something. Think back to the information you received, the recruitment event if you attended one, the way your application was handled and, particularly, your interview. How did you feel when you met the people who would be involved in your training? Did you feel that they were interested in you as an individual? Did the conversation give you a sense of how they think about teaching and teacher development?
An interview is necessarily a limited experience, but it is also an opportunity to see the people behind the course. If you came away thinking that these were people you could learn from, work with and trust to give you honest feedback, that is worth taking seriously.
It is also worth looking at the information you have already been given. By the time you receive an offer, you should have access to the detail you need about the course itself. Read the prospectus and the information on the provider's website again, particularly the sections about the curriculum, school placements, professional development and support. You may notice things differently now that you are making an actual decision rather than simply deciding whether to apply. Have a look back at our earlier blogs to remind yourself of some of the details that you might want to look at again.
You don't necessarily need to find a provider that is objectively better than all the others. You need to decide which environment and approach seem most compatible with your own values, expectations and way of learning.
That might mean choosing a university-led programme. It might mean choosing an online national provider. It might mean choosing a face-to-face school-based programme such as NTTC. There are good reasons why different people make different choices.
At NTTC, we hope that the experience candidates have with us gives them a clear sense of what we value: learning to teach well, taking educational research seriously, developing strong professional knowledge, being supported with everything you need as you train and being part of a community of teachers who are committed to improving their practice. If those things matter to you, you may find that NTTC is the right place for you to train.
If you want to talk to NTTC about anything mentioned in this article, please contact us: NTTC@ccn.ac.uk and 01603 773708 / 773278.
Why don’t you come along to NTTC’s open morning at Norfolk House, Exchange Street, Norwich to meet the team? We’ll be there to talk you through all aspects of our training programme, including our PGCE, on Saturday 26 September from 9.30am to 1pm.