STEM Online Experience Review

The STEM Online experience was well structured, allowing participants to have exposure to a mixture of informative sessions, skills development workshops led by Teach First and sessions led by external organisations. Each day of the experience was different, but each session delivered was very relevant and allowed me to learn something new and consider how to implement what I had learnt moving forward. It was great to be able to learn more about the different things going on at the organisation and start to develop core transferrable skills for the classroom along the way.

I have develop many skills from the experience and would therefore recommend it to anyone that wants to participate in an internship and take new skills away from it. Namely, I have learnt more about how to effectively engage an audience/class through different techniques of formative assessment, such as cold call questioning. I have also built more of an understanding of how to go about necessary, day-to-day matters such as managing a classroom effectively to ensure that students are all able to make the most of their time. The skills development opportunities in such a short space of time (3 days) was definitely a highlight of the experience.

Teach First were great at organising a range of sessions that introduced us to the organisation's mission, culture and different opportunities/routes of progression available. It was extremely helpful to be able to hear from a diverse range of speakers to learn more about what Teach First has been doing in areas such as promoting Diversity & Inclusion, as well as what paths people have taken through the programme. Being able to hear these experiences and pose questions has helped to give me more confidence in my understanding of Teach First as an organisation.

It is clear that Teach First does a lot as an organisation to create a very inclusive, welcoming atmosphere where everyone genuinely is encouraged to be themselves. I always felt that any queries I had were answered well and felt comfortable in engaging with all of my colleagues at all points. I also found the feedback sessions to be structured really well, in that they felt like safe spaces where constructive feedback was being delivered to support me in my development.

I thoroughly enjoyed the Teach First STEM online experience and could not recommend it highly enough to anyone else. Having reflected more on the experience, I have now realised that the experience has been one of the best structured insight programmes I have ever participated in. The balance of informative sessions, interactive workshops and networking opportunities was extremely enjoyable. This experience has been highly rewarding and I would encourage anyone that has a STEM background to apply for it, regardless of whether they are 100% set on becoming a teacher.

Yes

I would encourage you to research the organisation in depth. When you are filling in your application around your motivations, try to make sure that you can link some of what you are saying to the mission of removing educational inequality or whatever else you can relate to. Try to familiarise yourself with Teach First's values too - when you are answering questions about your experience, you will want to demonstrate these. When preparing for mock lessons as part of the assessment centre, I would strongly recommend that you practice beforehand to make sure that you can deliver all of your content in the allocated time (time-keeping is strict on the day).