What happens when you decide to become a Teacher 💡

Let’s say you feel a calling to teach.

What exactly happens next?

1. Figuring out if it’s for you
   
   There’s no substitute for actually spending time in schools. Thankfully it takes less than a minute to organise a day of experience at a local school. The UK is in such need of teachers that they’ve put together this link:

Select your preferred subject and age range to teach, and voila! you’ll be on your way to a structured day of lesson observations and conversations with teachers of your subject.

Right now there won’t be too many options available due to the upcoming summer holidays, but from September onwards (new school year) you should see ten’s of options within 15 miles of where you live.

Failing that, you could always arrange some time at either your old school or another school that you have some affiliation with. I did 3 of these experience days, one at a tough school in Croydon, one at a nice leafy Grammar school, and another at my ‘bog standard’ old state comprehensive school in Bradford. Having that diversity of experience, and broadly enjoying each one, helped reinforce my decision to take the leap and apply for initial teacher training.

2. Initial Teacher Training

There is a myriad of ways to get into the teaching profession. The main two are routes are:

1. PGCE (a 1-year Post-Graduate Certificate in Education)
2. Direct placement in a school

The main difference is that a PGCE is university-led, meaning you spend around 20% of your time in University learning pedagogy and exploring current themes in education, and the remaining 80% of your time in school applying it all. Alternatively, with school-direct, you start in school straight away and learn on the job.

I chose the PGCE because I liked the structure, but it’s really personal preference. Having said that, I do believe you only really learn how to teach by actually doing it, failing, iterating, and getting gradually better.

Another key element in choosing to teach is financial. There are generous bursaries available for PGCE candidates, meanwhile, School-direct placements tend to be salaried.

3. University of Oxford

I applied to 3 universities for my PGCE — UCL, Oxford and Manchester. The interview day is pretty straight forward. They will either ask you to prepare and teach a lesson (the interviewers pretending to be a fictional group of teenagers), and/or evaluate some case study. They may also give you a maths test to try, although the score isn’t as important as your reasons for wanting to lead in the classroom.

So once you get to University, what exactly happens then?

You spend the first few weeks attending lectures given by the tutors, completing group tasks, as well as reading and digesting educational research such as this, this and this. Separate to that you’ll also dive into other aspects of teaching such as behaviour management, working with special needs pupils, and how children’s brains develop. It’s all pretty interesting.

Me and the department cat, chilling after lectures

4. In School

Then you are given your first placement school. I would spend Monday and Friday at the University department, and Tues, Weds and Thurs in school.

Once you’re in school, the majority of your time will be spent observing lessons, supporting individual pupils and co-planning lessons with teachers. As soon as you’re ready, you’ll then be asked to plan and teach your own lessons. The current teachers then take a step back and become your mentors.

“Mr. Mistry” in the classroom

This period of time is all about getting feedback. Each lesson will be observed with a focus on one or two of the 8 Teaching Standards, and your mentor will give quite detailed things to work upon. It’s a very constructive but also often an emotionally exhausting process and makes you realise just how multi-faceted teaching really is.

The first page of a typical feedback form after each lesson. It’s comprehensive!

After Christmas, you’re now in school 5 days a week and have full autonomy over the classes you teach. There’s also weekly training and development sessions run by the school, in which you mingle with trainee teachers in the other subjects. These often end down the local pub!

In a normal year you’ll be placed at a ‘contrasting’ school for the March-summer stretch. I think this is a great idea as it happens around the same time that you apply to schools for a job starting later that year, and therefore you can make a more informed decision about the type of school you’d like to teach in. You’ll also take a lead on things like Parents Evening meetings, National Careers Week and hosting debates on current issues.

A slide from a classroom discussion I held with my Year 9 form group (13–14 year olds), in light of the tragic death of Sarah Everard. These conversations are never easy, but very important.

5. Finishing up

“But aren’t teachers lazy, and don’t they just get loads of holidays?”

Yes, you do get the holidays as per the school calendar, but you’ll probably be too busy with the university essays and lesson planning (or marking) to truly unwind. There are 3 assessed essays, 5000 words each. There’s some flexibility in the topics, mine where:

• The use of real-world examples in Mathematics classrooms
• The future of assessment in the UK
• Collecting data to understand the difference between ‘I taught it’ and ‘they learnt it’

The tough bit is that everything you write should be either research-backed or have sufficient evidence behind it. The fun part is interviewing the pupil’s themselves and getting their unique insight and perspectives into the learning process. For me, it triggered many of the ideas I now hold about education policy and helped embolden my vision for the school I eventually want to build.

What would the school of the future look like for you?

That aside, I get to live in an Oxford college and pretend to be a student. Of course, I’m not doing a ‘proper’ course, but it does have its perks like attending Oxford Union debate nights, working in beautiful libraries, and dusting off my fancier clothes.

A snapshot of college life. A real shame it was a covid year :(

Before you know it, it’s June and you’re handing over your classes back to the regular teacher. In between this, you’ll have also completed:

1. A portfolio of evidence to show that you’ve met each of the Teaching Standards
2. A record of all the mathematics that you’ve learnt and taught
3. A joint presentation to the school leadership team on what they can improve

Once this portfolio has been reviewed by the powers that be, together with your essays, lesson plans, lesson slides and observations forms, you are then granted Qualified Teacher Status:

Such that I can proudly say I am now a fully qualified teacher 🥳

p.s. Shameless plug: If you (or somebody you know) is interested in working with me this summer as a private tutor, please send me a message :)

I completed my PGCE at Oxford University and am working at a secondary school, teaching Mathematics. I comment on themes from Education & Learning, and how they might benefit you, and the next generation.

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Email: atish@theedletter.com