Three years into my career as a food and lifestyle journalist, I was told that I’d have to kill the person above me if I wanted to progress on that particular food magazine.
It’s no secret that career advancement in the industry is slow and there’s no shortage of mustard-keen writers to fill roles, particularly junior ones. And who can blame them? I lived the dreamiest of dreams, visiting banana plantations in the Caribbean, stuffing my cakehole in the test kitchen, guzzling cocktails and browsing brownies on Instagram – all in the name of research.
But while my tummy was (over)satisfied, I increasingly found that I wasn’t. I needed to do something that tested me, rather than my capacity to eat, drink, schmooze and repeat. I craved a career path with sturdy steps to climb rather than rickety ladders that could topple without warning. I’d grown tired of sitting behind my desk and mastering the art of looking busy – I wanted to be busy. I missed using the Spanish and French I’d poured so much time and effort into, and felt it might be time to pass on my love of languages and cultures.
Encouraged by positive previous experiences as an English teacher in Spain and Paraguay, I knew teaching was an option. There was no earth-shattering eureka moment, just a shove from my mum who told me I’d be good at it and that I should give it a shot.
I lack the patience for primary so I started to look into secondary modern foreign languages (MFL) teacher training. I spoke to teacher friends when weighing up the pros and cons of various routes – university-led PGCE, School Direct (salaried and unsalaried), Teach First, SCITT (school centred initial teacher training) – and chose School Direct (unsalaried) which leads to a PGCE. Don’t think I’m some kind of hero for choosing the unsalaried route – I am eligible for a bursary, which made more financial sense than the salaried route and equates to a modest monthly sum so I can survive in London.
With School Direct you apply directly to the school (geddit?) so you choose them and they choose you. I looked at three different London schools and quickly worked out which one I wanted to train at. Mine is a teaching school with high academic standards, a big MFL department, a selection of trips that reads like a gap year brochure and a commute that doesn’t feel like a mission to Mars. Although there’s no promise of a job at the end of the year, the school network does have an excellent track record of employing their trainees as NQTs.
Another aspect of School Direct was the sense of belonging that you get from joining a department from the start of the year and staying in that school for most of the year. As a career-changer, I wanted to feel more like an employee than a student – I’ll be at my school for most of the year, minus a four-week placement at another school and a few weeks at university. And I’ve somehow bagged myself not one but two experienced, caring mentors who I’ll meet with every week to discuss my progress.
I’ve already spent a few weeks at my school for induction, receiving training and observing classes so I can do a mildly convincing job of looking like I know what’s going on – something I think is vital if you want even the tiniest chance of your students taking you seriously. I’ve got to know members of my department too and they couldn’t be friendlier – hopefully with the help of tea and regular slabs of cake they’ll stay that way at least until half term. Given that these are the gurus I’m going to be learning from (read: clinging to) for the next year, it’s vital that I develop good relationships with them.
On top of this, I’ve sussed out the school’s bonkers bell system, figured out how many sheets of paper it takes to jam a guillotine and found out what 6am looks like – all of which will make my PGCE year run that little bit smoother.
My biggest fear is behaviour management (as it is for many trainee teachers) – I suspect that with 30 lively teenagers in the room you’re probably never more than 60 seconds from anarchy. I look forward to confidently handling the trickier cases so that I don’t teach in fear of a riot. I’m happy to say that my school has what seems to be an effective behaviour policy so I shouldn’t be dodging flying chairs on a daily basis.
But I’ve got to get my head around teacher speak – acronyms come thick and fast while targets, levels and changes to assessment leave me utterly befuddled. For now I’m just absorbing as much information as possible and thinking about how to put it into practice – that and finding the best concealer a humble PGCE bursary can buy for the dark craters already forming underneath my eyes. Any suggestions welcome.
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