Opinions on the TeachFirst route into teaching?

[MrsAJCrowley]

Hi guys, I need to pick your brains.

I am looking to change my career and I am looking at going into teaching. It is something I have always wanted to do and tbh, I’m not sure why I didn’t go down that route straight from uni.

I would be looking to do this course www.teachfirst.org.uk/our-programme/about-the-programme . Does anyone have any knowledge or experiences about the teach first courses?

If it’s necessary , I would look to teach history or English in secondary schools as I have suitable qualifications and a passion for both.

Cannon fodder.

They are told their good degree makes them special. SLT tell them that their good degree makes them special - and that their failure to cope with badly behaved students, workload and further training can't be right, because they're Teach First, who are supposed to be The Best. It's putting extra pressure on people who have always managed perfectly well to put pressure on themselves.

I think it's cruel. Chucking somebody who isn't even an NQT in at the deep end on the ground that 'you're smart, you'll cope' is wrong.

I do agree that TF are strong on pedagogy and research. Much more so than a lot if schools and providers.

However, it is often biased and ideological. And TF trainees often find other schools very hard to settle into. It's a recruitment strategy of course so that they remain in their TF school!

They’ve already dropped the entry criteria to a 2:2 this year and took on over 80% of those who applied.

Really? Bloody hell, those poor trainees. An 80% timetable after a term is no joke, and when they crash and burn the school will be left with a big hole in their timetable.

Yep.
schoolsweek.co.uk/teach-first-offered-places-82-assessed-applicants/

I'm pretty sure that history is a new subject for teach first

No. There have been TF historians since the first cohort in 2003. There have never been very many of them because History rarely has shortages.

Sorry for abandoning the thread slightly! Life got in the way!

For those who have asked I’m 26 with no children (more by accident than design - TTC atm but had a MC at the beginning of this year).

Teaching in schools I’m deprived areas was something I would have to do anyway I think. I am from a deprived area and still leave here (after moving around abit), so it was always on the cards for me I think

The reason that TeachFirst jumped out to me was because it is salaried. I can’t afford to go into training without a salary. I don’t want to have DH support me and take on that additional financial burden because I’ve decided to give up a really bloody awful perfectly adequate wage. I need to have something coming in

English PGCE attracts a £15k tax free bursary. Teach First taxed salary wouldn’t be much more would it?

Still £9k of fees to be found, noble, so more like £6k net.

It does have a bit of a reputation as elitist and arrogant and producing a certain type of teacher who expects a fast track.
That's my experience too.
A lot of people, especially in the south east, seem to do TF and then magically find themselves working in advisor positions with the DfE, quangos, directing think tanks, SLT within 5 or 6 years.

We do leadership events and the confidence of some TF who are HOD/SLT on fast track borders on arrogance.

Still £9k of fees to be found, noble, so more like £6k net.

You can get a loan for tuition fees. They’re paid back in the same way as other student lpans.

Yeah I wouldn’t be put off by tuition fees in favour of a much harder training route when you can get a student loan.

If OP has two BAs already she may not be eager to increase her student debt further.

I’m not sure anyone is ever keen to increase their student debt, but it’s a pretty easy one to deal with. Mine’s still enormous. It isn’t real money.

There are Teach First trained teachers who are about to embark on their seventeenth year of teaching. Just as with vegans, Oxbridge graduates, and people who are training for the London Marathon, there is an obnoxious minority amongst us who will get their ‘ambassador’ status into any conversation within the first five minutes, and then there is the quiet majority, getting on with our daily working lives with no delusions of superiority to any other training route. I have many colleagues who have no idea that I did TF, because I am fifteen years into my career and my training route is only sporadically relevant to my daily professional life. I would suggest that those PP who have encountered numerous elitist, arrogant TF teachers have probably also unknowingly encountered many more who are perfectly unassuming.

OP, in your position I would seriously consider TF. Be sure that you are willing to commit to teaching English, as there is no way that TF will take you on as a History trainee if you have an English degree. They usually offer your choice of region as an incentive to apply early.

NowTeach is also salaried. And you get put with a cohort of similarly staged people (ie not new grads). Also focussed on schools in deprived areas.

Thanks all for your views and experiences, they’ve been really helpful ☺️

I’m sure I read on here that your degree might be in history but TF decide that because you have A-level maths and there’s a shortage of maths teachers and not history teachers, you’re trained by them to be a maths teacher
That's one of the reasons I didn't train with them. I have an A Level that could force me into being trained as a Science teacher.

I also did some school to school support work with departments staffed entirely by TF or TF+1 colleagues. One department had zero subject specialists. Another had people who wanted to do primary but because they had Maths/English at A Level they were pushed into secondary.
Some have been great and lovely and grounded in our region, but the arrogance on the whole is quite annoying. Every year there seems to be a new initiative that's somehow got funding from a TF ambassador with 12 months in school now they've decided they're an expert on social deprivation and disadvantage. They sit around with other TF ambassadors and congratulate themselves on how forward thinking they are. I can't help but think that it may be better for all this money to go into properly staffed and funded specialist services instead of charidee vanity projects for wannabe DfE advisors.

More recently online adverts for TF seem to be marketing their trainees as an affordable way to plug a gap in staffing. I'm sure lots of diligent TF seems attractive to schools who can't recruit strong experienced staff in multiple areas.

There have been some great people I've met through it, but I'm increasingly getting cynical on the whole.

I did School Direct Salaried, but that was for primary. I don't know if it's an option for secondary but might be worth a look?