Student Review

I enjoyed my online taster experience very much! It was actually a lot better and more immersive than how I am being taught by my university which was a nice fresh experience. The two days were amazing, lots of time was clearly spent on creating interesting and informative activities for us all to be involved in.

Teach First have definitely done a great job at making you feel that you are worthy of being a teacher through their feedback and opportunities to share questions and ideas. It was really nice to receive feedback for my ideas on teaching methods and subjects of choice! Made me feel very welcome and valued.

The staff who ran the programme, whatever background they had, were extremely knowledgeable. They supported us through each task that we had to complete and always made sure we knew what we were doing. They gave us guidance on how to complete our applications and how to go forward with our training journey.

The tasks were very valuable and relevant to my plans to teach and hopefully join the teach first programme. The teaching episode task was really beneficial to get feedback on my teaching styles currently, which will help me improve to become a more competent and confident teacher in the future.

Considering they had to plan everything online for a whole classroom full of people, they were on point! They were able to easily separate us into smaller work groups for projects, tasks and discussions. I found this amazing! They had a timetable in place over the two days which they stuck to and was generally on time throughout apart from the predictable technological issues.

The atmosphere was lovely. I felt very welcome and the group of people selected were also lovely. It was nice to be with people who are like minded and not necessarily studying the same courses as myself. It was also helpful to listen to the staff about their personal experiences with teach first as that adds more value to their own presentations.

They allowed two sessions for discussing and working on our personal development which covered the competencies of teach first. I found this really helpful as we worked on our own skills and characteristics in relation to the expectations of teach first. They were open to questions about personal experiences too which made me feel that they genuinely cared about our own development in order to be successful with the application process.

I think that they did very well considering they had to deliver the taster experience online. Each member of staff had their own story and journey with teach first, which made it feel more real. Despite not being in a room with made resources, they were able to show what is expected of a training teacher with them.

We had a session working on the teach first mission and values which helped me identify the key values that would be expected of myself. The staff were very imformative and had many resources backing up and relating to the mission and vision. I feel that I understand teach first's ethos more after participating in the taster experience.

This experience helped me even further make a definitive decision about wanting to be a teacher. I already had my heart set, however working with the staff and other applicants on the activities they had set for us made me realise how much fun it can be being a teacher! Highly grateful for the opportunity.

Not applicable

There were many opportunities as they delivered a few sessions with people from different areas of the charity. They also brought in people who work in other charities or companies who they partner up with and this gave us potential volunteering opportunities and ways to improve or develop our skills for our application.

I found these really helpful and interesting. I liked hearing from different people and what they do. This includes the other participants such as those from different universities and who are studying different subjects. But also the staff members and other professionals with differing experiences. They also gave us information on how to stay connected going forward.

They gave us information on what activities or opportunities we could get involved in during the application process and also during the summer holidays during the training programme itself. There were lots of ideas and opportunities for us to get involved in. I find this really interesting and more likely that I will want to train with them.

I would 100% recommend this taster experience if someone is genuinely interested in training and working with teach first. It is definitely for someone who is passionate about their subject or area of expertise. So, if you are passionate and dedicated to the values and mission of teach first then I highly recommend the taster sessions.