#teach first

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"Thank You Teachers" The Prince of Wales praises schools and teachers

The Prince of Wales has praised schools and teachers for “going above and beyond for their pupils” as many schools begin to reopen as the lockdown of schools, which began in March, is beginning to be eased. The remarks from Prince Charles were made in a video message recorded at Birkhall in Scotland, where both Charles and Camilla have been isolating since March.

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Teach First, the Happening

Teach First, the Happening

So first of all, I need to apologise to everyone who has been kind enough to follow this blog, for having produced next to no content for a while. Next up comes a confessional which attempts to excuse my reticence. Yes, I pledged to keep writing, even when I thought that writing might be drivel. However, what I didn’t tell you was that On the 23rd of June this year I was about to begin the most…

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Ways to Gain Relevant Teaching Experience

 Explore learning

I spent several months working at Explore Learning and would recommend it as a flexible way of earning money tutoring if you’re a student. As a tutor at Explore Learning, you benefit from being part of a team as opposed to working alone, perhaps in someone’s house. You have access to lots of e-learning and on-the-job training before you start your first shift. These resources are a great introduction to learning about Special Educational Needs (SEN) and behaviour management. However, if you’re like me and have a degree in Psychology, it may be very familiar to you. Every Explore Learning centre has a ‘Surf Club’ area which is filled with fun and games, including many educational board games I’d never seen before. The children loved to play these and often didn’t realise they were learning at the same time and would be amazing to be used in class. For example, one game which sparked many lesson ideas for me was “Zingo”.

This clever spin on Bingo is a time-telling game that teaches children to learn to read an analogue clock. At first, it provides the scaffolding of telling them how many hours and how many minutes, but more difficult version removes this help and the children need to figure it out themselves.

Working at Explore Learning wasn’t perfect. I found that the drop-in format meant I saw lots of different children (great!) but this made it harder to build relationships with the children. In addition to this, the computer system would sometimes push a child too far ahead or be pushing them to answer questions too quickly. This was especially frustrating for children who needed a little extra processing time and demotivated them quickly. As the tutor in session, you are unable to change any of the computer settings. I found that for children with SEN this is a more common occurrence because their learning curve is different to on average and the computers couldn’t cope with that.

·      Volunteer tutoring

Similarly, Teach First has a list of lots of charitable organisations they recommend applicants working with before applying to help boost your experience on your application. These roles are unpaid but get directly to the heart of education inequality through working with families who cannot afford to pay a private tutor. Your volunteering will help make a difference to a child’s life and hopefully unlock new opportunities for them.

https://www.teachfirst.org.uk/our-programme/strengthen-your-application-volunteering

·      Visit a SEN school.

This is an invaluable experience and I cannot recommend it enough. It will open your eyes.

I worked as a Learning Support Worker in a SEN school before beginning my Teach First journey. Spending even a short amount of time inside a classroom will aid your understanding of the difficulties young learners face. Reading about the different conditions does not teach you about them. The presentation of Autism from person to person couldn’t be more different. Some children with Autism will be incredibly bright but may face their own challenges in other ways. Some of the simple strategies used by teaching staff in a SEN environment can easily be applied to a mainstream classroom to help reduce the anxiety or difficulties a child in the class may face.

As with anything you put on your application it’s what you’ve learnt from it that matters most. Working at Tesco’s could be relevant because you’ve worked as part of a team, have been punctual, put yourself up for leadership positions and organised your team on important tasks and motivated them to do so with a positive attitude. Who knows. You may be part of the University society or helped out at brownies, scouts or a sports team.

One crucial piece of advice to give you is think about the traits and things a teacher needs to do.

AND what a great teacher would do.

Show what kind of a teacher you aspire to be and use examples of how you know you will apply these skills in the context of teaching.

[educationtoday2017]

A lesson in teaching from the grassroots

by Andreas Schleicher Deputy Director for Education and Special Advisor on Education Policy to the OECD's Secretary General

I was in London last week to give a talk on “how to transform 10,000 classrooms” at the annual Teach First/Teach for All conference in London. Some 3,000 teachers and social entrepreneurs from around the world gathered there to discuss ways to re-invent and strengthen the teaching profession. The aspiration of the organisations under the Teach for All umbrella is to enlist promising future leaders from across academic disciplines and careers to teach at least two years in high-need schools and become lifelong promoters of educational quality and equity. The enthusiasm, commitment and growing professionalism of these grassroots organisations was inspiring. I heard many stories of people who had left successful careers to join the teaching force in order to make a significant impact on the lives of disadvantaged children. In some countries, participation levels have reached the critical mass to have a transformative impact on student achievement, and have made the success of this work both scalable and sustainable. Wendy Kopp, who co-founded Teach for America 22 years ago, recounted the evolution of her organisation from a small group of friends to one that reaches more than 750,000 students. In New Orleans, 25% of teachers are now from Teach for America. In the UK, too, Teach First is now the third largest recruiter of graduates and reaches over 150,000 children. Still more impressive were the stories told by the young participants who had designed and were delivering intensive training courses for 400 teachers per year in Nigeria – a country with an essentially non-existent teacher-training infrastructure; and a participant from China shared how she was collaborating with local governments to build urgently needed teaching capacity in remote rural areas. Critics of these organisations maintain that there is just no alternative to the traditional route of undergraduate studies, teacher training and then a career in the classroom. But those critics may simply underestimate the potential for creativity in the field of education that this combination of talent, passion and experience represents. The fact that, in many countries, these programmes are now so attractive that they can recruit the most promising candidates, even where the general status of the teaching profession is in decline, speaks for itself. We should also not overlook the rapid professionalisation of these organisations, which combine intensive initial training, ongoing support, and a work environment in which teachers work together to create good practice. They also offer intelligent pathways for teachers to grow in their careers, and support teachers in their efforts to find innovative ways of teaching. What struck me most is the vision of social transformation behind all this work – extending from teacher leadership through school leadership, policy and political leadership, up to community organisation. The work of these organisations can complement the OECD’s efforts to design and implement policies by challenging the teaching profession and education systems from within. We should do what we can to engage with them.

Links:

Preparing Teachers and Developing School Leaders for the 21st Century: Lessons from around the world

OECD Teaching and Learning International Survey (TALIS)

Strong Performers and Successful Reformers in Education

Photo credit: Grass roots / Shutterstock

[quilld]

ffs mr corbett why are you taking credit for some kid considering going to university all you did was tell them about debate soc

[riversarl]

Teach First NZ 2016 cohort.

[sheffieldstudies]

What a wonderful birthday present, to find out you have been unsuccessful at the first stage of the Teach First application...

[sheffieldstudies]

Hi folks. I feel like every time I post on here it is an apology. Well here is another one... I have been terrible at studying recently and I want to rectify that. I have got a week to go until my Teach First application is due, and I have also gotten so behind on my maths that I can no longer see the light at the end of the tunnel. This one is going to take some serious digging out. Well here goes, here is my promise to you. Starting Monday 2nd November, I will upload a picture of me doing something productive. If I don't, please send me an ask to remind me that I should be doing work (except for 12th-16th November, as I'm going on holiday for my birthday). Thank you for being there. Jenna