Insight Participant Review

I enjoyed most of it. The teaching experience in the second week was definitely the highlight. Working in a disadvantaged school is certainly a very rewarding job. I found that the first week (in which the introductory talks and training were given) was a little dull. The content wasn't necessarily bad but I found that the same theme was repeated a lot which got a bit boring.

I certainly felt valued. This was something which was stressed a lot. As a STEM graduate the teaching community really needs you and this is especially true in disadvantaged schools. This message was put across very well and it made me feel as though I was a valuable part of an organisation which could actually make a difference.

During the first week we were given a lot of guidance and support. There were a lot of talks about what we would be doing and how we should deal with certain circumstances. During the second week there was less support, but this was mainly due to the fact that the school didn't always know what we were supposed to be doing. The Teach First team still made sure they were easily contactable during the second week which was very helpful.

For my degree it is reasonable irrelevant but it was a great insight into teaching. As a student who is not sure whether I want to go into teaching in the future it was a great way of gaining experience in a school which I would otherwise not have had access to. I certainly recommend it for anyone who is considering teaching. Teaching in challenging schools isn't for everyone but it certainly is very rewarding.

In the first week the structure was very clear and it ran very well but I found that some talks repeated each other quite a lot which gave the impression that speakers were not aware of what others had said. The organisation in terms of us knowing where we should be and what we should be doing was very good. In the second week the structure was poor. We were put into schools but found that often the schools had no idea what to do with us half the time.

Very positive. It was very easy to make friends and it was great to be around so many like minded people. Some of the social events at the start seemed a little forced but I think that is usually the case. The experience of being in halls with the other participants was also a great bonus.

The training was brief, but for what it was I think it was done well. We were given introductions to different teaching styles, behaviour management techniques and we were introduced to resources which would be useful when preparing lessons. Nothing particularly in depth was covered but we got a taste of a lot of different things in a short period of time.

Not really. There were a lot of talks in the first week but what I really wanted was hands on experience. During the second week we were only scheduled to teach one lesson (luckily my school gave me two). This really wasn't enough to gauge what it would actually be like full time.

Not that much. There was a lot of jargon thrown around and many inspirational stories told but everyone we spoke to worked directly for Teach First rather than having done the LDP and then carried on with teaching. This meant that we were never actually sure how enjoyable the LDP would be because were were being talked to by people who were being paid to tell us it was great but quit as soon as they could.

It was a useful insight but it wasn't particularly eye opening. I was pretty sure from the beginning that I didn't want to do the LDP and the programme didn't change my opinion on that. I found that it was pretty much as expected, which gave me a little more confidence in my previous decisions but no more than that.

This was the main reason the internship attracted me in the first place. £500 for two weeks of doing something I enjoy anyway is not bad, and it looks great on your CV. I would say that some other participants had higher travel costs than I did which meant they didn't have much left over after the two weeks. Personally I found it to be adequate.

Yes. There was a specific networking event in which we were able to chat to various members of the team. I thought this was one of the better events and I enjoyed being able to ask questions to people who had been through the LDP. I thought that there should actually have been more events of this type.

Because we were in halls during the first week, it was very easy to socialise with other participants. There was plenty of down time in the evenings and it was quite nice to experience halls life again. There were also ice breakers during the first few days which were ok but not great. There were also two pub events which were fun and allowed us to meet with members of the Teach First team more informally.

Yes. This is one of the things Teach First are very good at. They have loads of internships in other companies which you can do during the summer while you are on the LDP. They sold this very well and I think it was one of the key selling points which made the LDP so appealing to some of the other participants. The one thing which seemed a little odd was that in the presentation in which these events were introduced, there were a lot of seeming ungrounded statistics being mentioned which made some points quite unclear.

Yes I certainly would. Overall it was a very fun experience and although I didn't come to any revelations about my career it certainly was a nice insight. I would recommend this insight to anyone who is wondering whether they would like to become a teacher. It is a nice way of trying it out with ought getting too committed to anything.