Teach First Insight Participant Review

I really enjoyed the actual experience at the school but some of the days at the Teach First headquarters where very long winded, with a lot of information often being given out in the space of a few hours.

I felt that Teach First treated us exactly as they treat their own employees which I felt was very good to see as we were being regarded as equals, regardless of experience.

I received a great deal of help and support from the person in charge of this programme. We also had a chance to speak to many other former/current teachers to see how they felt and what we could do to increase our chances of being successful in the classroom.

I felt that the skills I learnt, especially in the classroom, will help me throughout my career after graduation. Skills such as resilience and patience are essential when dealing with different types of people everyday and I believe that these were two skills which I developed greatly during the programme.

The days at Teach First were very formal and structured whereas the structure at the placement school was the complete opposite. We had a change of timetable twice during the week, and the department we worked in did not really care about us in my opinion.

The experience at the school was very fun and energetic. I also had a good time getting to know the other participants and talking to the other employees. The only thing that was a big thorn in my experience was the 2+ hrs of commuting to the school each way, everyday, which was a total nightmare! I used almost every possible mode of transport to just reach the school. I would have hoped that I would be placed at a school with no more than 1 hr of commuting each way

In my opinion, I believe that the company spent a great amount of time with us, trying to get us ready for the days at our placement schools and this was really helpful as they had already been in our position before, so hey had a great idea of how we would actually feel and what we will need to know/learn in order to succeed.

The insight was more of less the perfect opportunity for us to experience the day to day life as a Teach First Teacher as every teacher is placed at certain types of schools, which we were too.

I felt that I understood quite a lot about the company and its objectives and this was reinforced during my time at the school where I was going to be teaching.

I feel that this experience has given me the knowledge and understanding of how life will be if I apply for the graduate programme, because this was essentially a small chunk of the whole package as a teacher.

I was reimbursed for all my travel and was also given daily lunch vouchers.

We met with some of the employees at the school and also during the initial learning days at the HQ. On the final day, we met with many more of the employees and also had a chance to socialize with them.

The networking event was very useful into understanding how to be successful at the graduate prorgramme assessment center and I also had a chance to find out about life both inside and outside the classroom, from current and former teachers.

A s a university student, there are may ways of getting involved with Teach First, but I did not really find out what you could be doing as a full time teacher during the graduate programme.

Yes, I would definitely recommend this insight to a friend, but only to friends with the ability to handle young teenagers and absorb a lot of information in a very short amount of time!