What you achieve in life shouldn’t be dictated by your background, yet it often is. Children from disadvantaged backgrounds are less likely to go on to higher education, and the attainment gap effect can last a lifetime, according to Teach First, the charity established in 2002 to tackle educational disadvantage.
Teach First’s work is well documented – it has placed more than 10,000 teachers in low-income areas through its teacher training programme, supporting more than 1 million children. But what’s less well known is the range of support and training offered to teachers throughout their careers, via a range of Teach First programmes.
Teach First currently has a number of development programmes designed to offer ongoing support to staff as they progress through their teaching careers:
• The Training Programme.
• The Careers Leader programme.
• The National Professional Qualification (NPQ) School Leader programmes.
• The Leading Together programme.
In addition, the Early Career Framework, a new pilot programme currently being trialled in a handful of early rollout areas, provides additional support to recently qualified teachers.
Andrea Hall is headteacher at Whitehouse Community Primary School in Suffolk. She recruited three new trainees through the Teach First training programme, and says they’re already among her best teachers, despite only having 18 months of experience in the classroom.
“Working with Teach First was a bit of a gamble, as I’d never worked with them before, and we were a ‘requires improvement’ school,” she says. “But this June our Ofsted report was ‘good’ and the Teach First trainees have very much played a part in that journey.”
All three teachers plan to stay on at the school, and Hall has just recruited two more Teach First trainees. “It’s such an investment to have trainee teachers, so you really need to get it right,” she says. “But the level of support from Teach First is outstanding – you have so many people looking out for the trainee that nothing slips through the net.”
Deb Loveridge is headteacher at Robert Blake Science College, based in Bridgwater, Somerset, an area of significant economic deprivation. She says Teach First programmes have been “an absolute lifeline” for her school over the past five years.
“We want to train wonderful teachers, whether they stay with us or not, but the fact that five of our trainees have remained with us and all 11 trainees have stayed in the profession is a credit to Teach First,” she says. “Our English, maths and science teams wouldn’t be as they currently are without Teach First, and we have such a symbiotic relationship because our school ethos overlaps so beautifully with Teach First’s vision.”
One of the school’s assistant headteachers is currently on the Teach First Careers Leader course; a free year-long programme aimed at middle to senior leaders who have specific responsibility for career development within schools.
“It’s a rigorous programme with a lot of work involved,” says Loveridge. “Candidates have to show how they’re implementing the Gatsby benchmarks [which define world-class education career guidance], so that’s having a very positive impact on our school.”
Loveridge’s assistant headteacher attends the sessions along with a teacher from another local school, which also brings benefits to Robert Blake Science College. “Often in education there’s not enough networking or sharing of ideas,” says Loveridge. “We’re currently introducing an idea across our school that was passed on from another school through the Careers Leader programme sessions. It’s a minor thing – linking every lesson to the workplace – but it’s the little tweaks that accumulate to make a difference.”
Three members of staff have applied for Teach First’s NPQ School Leader programme, including Loveridge. These are accredited leadership courses targeted at middle leaders, senior leaders, and aspiring headteachers that provide continuous professional development support and qualifications for existing teachers.
“The hardest thing about teaching is staying in it, because it’s such a demanding job,” says Loveridge. “That’s why we invest so much time in Teach First training. Everything they do is infused with a little bit of magic.”
Graihagh Crawshaw, director of school leadership at Teach First, says growing and developing leadership within schools is vital. “Unless we have brilliant leaders, our teachers will be unable to thrive,” she says. “Our Careers Leaders and NPQ School Leaders programmes are about growing the pipeline of individuals who have the right skills to effect the necessary change that schools and their pupils need.”
For schools that need the most support, Leading Together is a free school improvement programme. It’s only available in specific regions and, unlike other Teach First programmes, it supports the entire senior leadership team rather than just one individual.
Teach First provides an “achievement partner” – typically a former headteacher with a mix of coaching skills and experience of turning around a struggling school – to provide bespoke, non-judgmental support in helping the school work on an improvement plan.
A number of learning modules are also delivered as twilight training sessions or as residentials, to encourage school-to-school collaboration. “It’s difficult if you think you’re in competition with the school up the road or feel shame about your current context or grading,” adds Crawshaw. “But being able to look up and outwards is crucial for moving a school forward.”
To find out more about the wide range of support available and to build a long-term partnership for your school, contact Teach First here
