Difference between Get Into Teaching and Teach First?

[practicaldot6711]

Can anyone help me please? I was mistaken - I thought these 2 schemes were the same. I even had a long Zoom meeting with a Get Into Teaching person in my region who spoke mostly of the SCITT program locally where I get a bursary and am placed in schools in my region to be trained to teach. After that, I also attended in person a Teach First presentation held at my uni previously for final year students. The presenter was a local teacher and it all sounded very similar to the SCITT - training in schools, you also get paid while you train.

I only realised I mixed up the 2 schemes when I was contacted by someone from Teach First through my Linkedin profile recently as she said I would be suitable from my Linkedin profile - many years of experience private tutoring Maths, and my qualifications and grades. After speaking to her, she clarified that I have mixed up both schemes. That Teach First is a paid salaried training position within a school.. whereas the SCITT is the bursary scheme which gave you monthly instalments to pay you the bursary (sort of like a salary in my eyes) but also training within schools.

So apart from the slight difference in terms of pay mode and amounts, what are the more overt differences between the two schemes? It's really hard to Google anything online that explains the difference. When I asked the Teach First person, she said Teach First gives you a PGDE and QTS, compared to a QTS and PGCE through Get Into Teaching.

Are there any other differences between the 2 schemes I should know about? And is having a PGDE that much significant compared to a PGCE?
Also I don't drive and I remember the Get Into Teaching person who spoke to me said I should try to get a licence because the school I train at (under the SCITT program) may be quite a distance away. That's actually one big reason putting me off applying. Will the Teach First program also be like this?

Any other things I should know about? I am holding back from applying because there seems to be so much I don't know about what these schemes actually entail.. and I dread having to get a licence. I did pay for driving lessons previously and failed the test 3 times. I've already resigned myself to the idea that driving is not for me. I'm really quite clumsy anyway by nature.

I'm no expert, but my DD considered both before going for a SCITT. She had a TeachFirst interview and secured a place, but then they couldn't find her a school in the region she needed, so she went for a SCITT.

The salary and expectations were very different, as far as I could see. With Teach First, you earned a proper salary and we're teaching from the very start, with a class of your own etc. SCITTs get a bursary, and they first observe, then work up to delivering lessons. It's a much gentler introduction.

As I recall, DD was based in one (secondary) school and spent a term in another, very different school, to get a wider experience.

Thanks. Yes I think it depends on the subject. I'll be training to teach Maths so the bursary is quite a lot, around £25k, paid in monthly instalments. To me it sounds on par almost with the Teach First salary which is like £20k for the first year... maybe even slightly more. I don't mind as long as I'm paid to train. So is it a difference between the kind of school available to train in? Apart from the PGCE/PGDE distinction?

Bear in mind that the bursary is tax free

Sorry to throw this in but re driving and “being clumsy” Have you considered exploring a diagnosis of Dyspraxia?
Look on the Dyspraxia Foundation website, affects so much more than movement. If not good research for teaching anyway.

Our eldest daughter was diagnosed with Dyspraxia whilst studying for her Masters. The University paid as she was facing clinical placements too far away for public transport.
She was struggling to learn to drive and her Driving Instructor suggested the assessment. They then made reasonable adjustments.
Your choice may be led by school locations?

There's lots of grey areas, to be honest. But Teach First was set up to get teachers into schools where there were vacancies (and do often not very good). I don't know that it's always like that now. I think the drop out rate from that course remains pretty high. In my, admittedly out-of-date experience, Teach First does not prioritise giving people the skills to develop a long term career. It has a very short term mindset. I suspect if it had changed that mindset, then they'd have changed the irritating name too: teach first- before you go into your real career.

I've just completed my teacher training, primary though so it may be a bit different to secondary. What job are you doing at the moment, have you ever worked in a school? If not, I'd definitely suggest observing/volunteering before making the commitment.

I have worked in schools for many years and was a TA before doing my teacher training. My school at the time offered to put me through Teach First, so I research it. With Teach First you will be employed by a school as an unqualified teacher and have full responsibility for a class from the start. Most of the tutorials will be online with a few in person. You will do a PGDE which is 2years compared to a PGCE which is one year. I think the PGDE is 4 assignments over the 2 years whereas the PGCE is 3 assignments over 1 year. You will gain QTS alongside both. Personally I don't think you gain anything from doing the extra study unless you want to go on to do a masters (PGCE gives credit for 1/2 a masters and PGDE 3/4).

I did mine through a SCITT, I had 3 placements in 3 different schools (although some only offer 2 placements).

I'm so pleased I went with the SCITT route as I gained far more from my placements in different schools. Also, looking back, I think I would have found it really difficult having full responsibility for my class on top of all the assignments, tutorials etc.

Oh yes I have looked into this, but don't think I'd qualify as properly dyspraxic as I can do all the fine motor skill stuff, needle work, kitchen work, I can write really nice script if I focus on it, I'm good at drawing and sketching still life, etc... and I also learnt to ride a bicycle within a month... but I've always been bad at taking corners.. Especially evident when I had to push my babies in a pushchair when they were young. Would always bash the pushchair on something 😂My son especially was a lot worse than I am, but he eventually "grew out" of it - not sure if it's because I kept sending him to martial arts, swimming, water sports, rock climbing stuff etc to try and improve his balance. He also learnt to ride a bicycle very quickly at age 4... I think we're clumsy but not properly clumsy enough to be dyspraxic... Dyslexia runs in the family from my husband to my 2 daughters though! I had my eldest assessed and she was dx with mild dyslexia. My husband already never reads but can be forced to... even then, very slow at reading. My daughters both have visual stress but both of them never really struggled at school either.. I don't have it myself though, and neither my son. I'm sure we're all a bit quirky in our family somehow, but yet sort of able to sort of fit in with others.

Interesting phew glad you weren’t offended. Neither of mine managed a bike ( one autistic one Dyspraxic)

I'm going into my last year of a second degree and have not worked in schools. I've been a private Maths tutor for many years. I have taught school children for my agency's NTP programme though and I've seen some challenging behaviour from some teenagers with special needs or... once I even had to teach a boy who was expelled and he was challenging. I am thinking of becoming a cover after graduating next year. I have been approached on Indeed and Linkedin to become HLTA previously but I just couldn't really balance the uni commitment alongside my current private tutoring commitments and a HLTA job... I have no idea if I'd be good at it but I'd try it and see.

I might be wrong but I'm pretty sure you have to pay tuition fees with the SCITT option, not sure if that is the case with Teach First or not.

Apart from that, in my experience (I'm a teacher), the training with a SCITT is more thorough and nurturing. The Teach First students I've met seem to be under the impression that they are the elite (I think this is often how the scheme is (or at least, was) sold, on account of their first class degrees. Which seems to result in some misplaced confidence, which inevitably gets bashed out of them. Hence the high drop out rate.

We had a teach first placement this year and I must admit I was dubious. Couldn’t see how it would work and how they could teach straight away without training and somebody watching and feeding back. She’s been amazing and I think is actually a better teaching at the end of this stage than a really high achieving pgce or Scitt student. BUT is has been incredibly tough on her and is very much sink or swim. There are no fees for teach first and you do get paid. My school is actually an anomaly as it’s a pretty nice school. I think most teach first schools are tougher

Thanks for the comments, they've all given me food for thought. I feel like doing the HLTA or cover role after graduating next year would be best for me to experience working in schools.

However my teen children tell me horrendous stories about how kids behave in class when there's a cover teacher.. It sounds like they don't really behave well at all and can do what they like. I feel like covers are not really there to teach, even if they are supposed to, I can't see how much teaching would be going on. It sounds more like a role where they just ensure the kids aren't murdering each other in class or something. The best covers in the kids' and their classmates' opinions are the ones who just let the kids do what they like in class, chat with them about non-academic stuff etc. So I think being a cover is quite a different experience from being the actual subject teacher, where the kids behave a bit better as the teacher has more authority and can send out difficult students or change seating plans.

As for TAs, well my son says the kids in his class with TAs are fine with them... but my daughter says there's an autistic boy in her class who goes into really public, angry meltdowns if the TA said something even slightly contradictory to what he said. They know the TAs in their classes by name. My kids don't go to a very nice state school, the local areas aren't very middle-class, but it's okay though because unlike some other local schools, bullying isn't well tolerated in my children's school and they deal with it quite well.

But it looks like something I'd probably do before I'd even apply for teacher training. I'm perimenopausal and sometimes don't get the best sleep. It's not the optimal time for me to get a very full on stressful job. However if I teach Maths then it isn't as stressful imo I know the curriculum inside out and have come across a lot of teens and know most of the problem areas in Maths they tend to have, as I tend to get tutees who aren't naturally good at Maths or are failing and need to pass it etc. I'm not sure though how Maths is marked - does not seem like a lot of marking time is happening? My daughter's just finished her GCSEs last month. In her entire time there, her Maths homework was on Sparx Maths (automated online marking program) and if she had homework in books, the teacher goes over the answers with the class during class time. I wonder apart from the mocks and year end tests etc, what kind of marking do Maths teachers typically do. Maybe it differs from school to school?

I have a friend who is an ESL teacher at my children's school. She says to me to become a supply teacher instead as she says ever since she became one, the money is good? She says she gets more than £100 a day for it, though the work isn't guaranteed or that predictable. I'll probably have to speak to her again on that because I know she does not have a PGCE or postgrad qualis - in fact she is in my same degree course, though she graduated this year whereas I do next. I have no idea if we need QTS to do that, but when I Googled supply teaching qualifications, the websites say they need QTS 🤷🏻‍♀️

Teach First is a specific training provider. Get Into Teaching is a general scheme by the DfE to promote people applying to become teachers via any means, and will advise you about numerous routes with the objective of just getting people into the profession.

It's definitely a great idea to get some workplace, life, travel and working or volunteering with kids experience before you apply for teacher training. Then you can apply for multiple routes, eg TF, a local scitt or two, a uni and take your pick when they start offering you places.

Ps. You do need QTS to be a supply teacher

You might want to read Re-educated by Lucy Kellaway. She was a journalist at the FT, then trained to become a teacher in her 50s before setting up Now Teach.

Yes that's what I'm going to do next year. If there's one thing I have never done, is working with larger groups of people. I have a psych degree etc. I'm still wondering if I should focus on 1-to-1 work which I know I'm good at, versus group work. I had a couple of things I had already thought of for a mid life career change, work in mental health as a counsellor or therapist (which needs more expensive training), work as a personal tutor for LA-contracted agencies where I support troubled (e.g. teens who have been convicted of crimes) or SEN children 1-to-1 to support their return to school, or retrain to be a classroom teacher. In my experiences when I dealt with or taught troubled teens - those were the experiences I found most fulfilling somehow, especially once I established a rapport. Still unsure what to do, but I'm sure work experience in a school next year onwards will settle for me whether to go on to working with groups of people, or stay in 1-1 type of work.

I've always been a quirky oddball kind of person, never really felt I fitted in properly in groups. I can get along with people and do the whole nurturing thing well I think... when I was a hairdressing apprentice when I was young, a regular client told me I shouldn't work there and should instead become a nurse. I think because of this, deep down I feel insecure about my abilities in a group setting. Which explains why I have this hesitation about doing classroom teaching. They are desperate for teachers I'm sure. I get contacted all the time for work on Linkedin and Indeed etc. I used Indeed more than a decade ago when I needed an extra job as my husband lost his job then. I never used it again but offers still come in every week, sometimes personal emails from employers asking me if I'd consider teaching at their places. I think this is perhaps making me wonder should I give classroom teaching a go! Trying to understand for myself if I'm just getting influenced because of all these requests to teach classes.. or whether I truly should do it.

Also I'm aware that kids act very differently 1-1 than when they're in a group of other kids.

Teach first is like a cult. Its very strange and has its own distinctive ways with summer camps and intensive training before. SCITT is pretty standard teacher training. Google the cult of TF

TF was supposed to attract the highest qualified graduates to teach before they pursued another career. All the TF are very charming and engaging but arrogant - in my huge sample of 2 so obviously this is my personally bias view

TF places trainees in the difficult ti staff schools and is sink or swim as pp said. They will be minimal training in school but just jump in at the deep end witha full timetable

Supply teacher are often unqualified teachers.

We have a amazing cover supervisors at all the schools I have worked at. Some not amazing also.

Did you decide in the end?

Not yet. I'm finishing my Masters soon, and with my tutoring schedule, I can't really fit in extra work such as trying out various school positions till I finish. I am veering more towards pursuing a PhD (obviously not for the money), but I'll see how it goes. Tutoring still works well for me as a side job but I don't know if it's really scalable to becoming a full-time thing.