Aspiring teachers are discovering that there’s more than one way to skin a rabbit when it comes to training. Time was when graduates entering the profession had to drop what they were doing and throw themselves headlong into a maelstrom of theory and practice for one gruelling academic year.

But in the past couple of years, training institutions have been experimenting with part-time PGCEs - as well as other flexible versions of the course that can run for up to two years or longer - in the hope of attracting those who might otherwise be precluded from a career in teaching.

Course directors and students alike are finding that the innovation is paying off. Courses are proving highly popular, successful and often hugely oversubscribed, and there are already plans to boost the numbers in the coming years.

“There are two main differences between the flexible programme and the standard course,” says Kate Cleary, a course director at Bradford College, where flexible courses began last September.

“First, flexible postgraduate students can be given accreditation for prior learning - and, second, they can progress at a speed that is appropriate to their circumstances.”

Not surprisingly, teacher shortages play a large part in the rationale behind the new courses, says Ms Cleary, but the thinking is also informed by a wider logic of ‘inclusiveness’.

“In Bradford, it has always been part of our ethos to try to encourage into the profession students from culturally diverse backgrounds, mature people, those wishing to change careers, or men who wish to go into primary teaching,” she says.

“A wide range of people are applying for our flexible programme - graduates who have been working as classroom assistants, those with experience of working with early years children, teachers who trained abroad and now want to work in this country, those from minority backgrounds and mature people who have family responsibilities.”

In many cases, part-time students with careers in other fields have been able to carry on working while they train - sometimes even as full-timers.

The difficulty arises typically during blocks of teaching practice, when students must commit to a period of full-time work in a school. Even so, as early teaching practices are only a few weeks long, those with other jobs find that they can use up holidays or take unpaid leave. And by the time the longest practice comes in the final stages of the course, many find that they have already found a teaching job - and thus hand in their notice at their previous workplaces.

Susan Holt, a newly qualified primary teacher who graduated last December, trained on a part-time PGCE over five terms at Canterbury Christ Church college in Tunbridge Wells, even though she was based in south London and had family commitments and another career.

“I was working part-time as a therapeutic radiographer,” she says.“I’d reached a fairly senior position and found that I missed the hands-on aspects of the job. I found I was able to fit the course around the days I didn’t work.

“During the teaching practices, my employer allowed me to take unpaid leave and by the final practice I had already secured a full-time job. I finished the last teaching practice just before Christmas and went straight into my new job in the new year. It was tough, but well worth it.”

Those with less sympathetic employers or with other financial constraints may welcome the news that all the usual forms of support are available to part time trainees. Terry Whysall, an administrator of part-time provision at the University of Nottingham, where demand for flexible courses is also increasing, says:“Part-time trainees are entitled to the pound;6,000 bursary, which is paid in two parts. They can apply for student loans in the usual way and for secondary shortage-subject scheme (SSSS) money if they plan to teach secondary maths or English.

Course fees for home students and European nationals are also paid by the Teacher Training Agency. There is also an option, says Ms Whysall, for newly qualified teachers to complete their induction on a part-time basis, although the difficulties of finding a part-time position in a school will be the same as for any other practising teacher. On the other hand, tutors are finding that many of those choosing to do part-time training go on to take up full time teaching jobs. Those with young children, for example, often find that toddlers have a habit of growing older during the course so that a full-time job becomes a much more manageable and desirable proposition by the time they become qualified.

The early signs are that part-time courses are also developing new approaches to subject specialisms. At Bradford, primary trainees cultivate a specialism in an area related to their degree subjects or previous occupations.

Meanwhile, the Institute of Education at London University is testing the ground with a part-time PGCE that spans five terms and is aimed at practising artists and musicians - people who want to train as teachers but who would rather not relinquish their own artistic projects for a whole year.

Ute Leiner, a London-based artist and lighting designer, is one of a group of 15 artists training at the Institute this year.

“It was quite hard at first,” she says. “In December, I had an exhibition and was trying to keep up with the course so I didn’t get much sleep - but it’s working out really well now. Working with children is a great challenge - it’s inspiring and it has helped to clarify some of the objectives in my own artistic practice.”

In the end, recruitment and retention are two very different things, and it is too early to tell whether this new breed of trainees will still be working in schools in a few years’ time. In the meantime, training providers are at least discovering that if all roads lead to Rome, many would prefer to take a scenic route.