We Have Success!
Two weeks later I found out I passed the assessment centre and was offered a _conditional_place as a TeachFirst Trainee, they took the copious amounts of information I had sent in and all the recommendations from the assessment day to conclude I was fit. Hoorah!
My aim with this post is to detail all the steps after the offer and bring us up to date with where I am now.
So to quickly catch you up I moved from a soul destroying corporate London job to becoming a Teaching Assistant and from there decided to start a career in education. I perused the options and decided on three viable ways to become a teacher.
If you’re interested you can check those posts out here: (Link to post 1)
Having been really excited about TeachFirst I was of course ecstatic to have been offered a position. I decided therefore, not to continue with the Schools Direct access route, luckily for me TeachFirst had responded quickly and I hadn’t properly started applying to places.
However, being offered the position didn’t mean I had made it. Some of you may have noticed the little ‘conditional’ note attached; and so had I.
I had hurdles to jump and hoops to climb through. There was a whole plethora of tasks and activities I needed to complete in order to confirm my place.
So, there I was, in the middle of my school day when I got the notification and I was totally buzzed. I got myself home and sat down to give the email the time and attention it needed so I was clear on the next steps.
Step 1 – Personal Information
So once you are offered you’re required to fill out a whole host of information about yourself. This isn’t too exciting, more time consuming. This included educational details (GCSE and A-Level grades), your university degree qualification and finally they ask about your preferences regarding the program. They listen to your views and desires and try to work with you as best they can.
Step 2 – The CV
It’s funny, but my personal CV didn’t come into play much during the application process. TeachFirst ask you a few questions and ask you to fill out between 500-1000 words on three questions that they will then send along with your profile to prospective schools. Oh yes, that was new information. TeachFirst place you in a school, they take into account all your preferences and the preferences of the partner school and become teacher-school matchmakers. Yet, you have very little say in where you eventually end up. I hope you like surprises.
Step 3 – The CKA
What is a CKA? It stands for Curriculum Knowledge Assessment. I did not know what this was. I knew that teachers generally had to pass a test as part of gaining their place. However, the professional skills test was no longer a requirement. So what was this monstrous beast that lay before me? I had so many questions and couldn’t find any answers. So here’s a few answers for you.
The CKA is a long essay like document where you answer five questions with word lengths between 500-1500 words. It’s open book and you can do it in your own time, but they assess your knowledge of the curriculum, your professional judgement and differentiation, and your subject knowledge. It wasn’t difficult in the end, but it was time consuming and I for one made an array of grammatical errors which the tutor picked up on. They are basically looking to see that you’re competent writing in English and that you have a comprehensive understanding of your subject. If you are feeling a little shaky subject knowledge wise there are Subject Knowledge Enhancement (SKEs) courses that you can take via online learning.
It took some time, and I completed mine whilst on a skiing holiday. Therefore, if I can do it from a chalet in France you have nothing to worry about.
Step 4 – Accepting the offer
The final step is the easiest – accepting the offer. You just have to click a nice easy button that says you accept the offer – the only thing to note is that they ask you to confirm this is your primary option and they want to ensure that they’re not wasting time with people who aren’t committed to them. Which is understandable as they invest heavily in you, and they’re working as a not for profit charity so each penny needs to be justified.
More waiting game…
Once you’ve done that everything goes off to be checked and confirmed. I received some extensive feedback on my curriculum knowledge assessment which was great and they give you reading lists and a host of admin type tasks to complete.
They have an online preparation course which prepares you for Summer Institute and lasts about 90 minutes. Summer Institute is their training program where you undergo an extensive preparatory training at university before spending a week in Leeds with the entire 1,600 strong cohort – but there’s more to come on that later…
TeachFirst are incredibly supportive and communicate excellently once you’re signed up. I was able to attend a webinar on managing my professional and personal life. I attended a preparation course that ran me through what to expect and some tips and tricks. I was given some recommended reading and I was added to their Facebook group to connect with the other successful applicants. My recruiter kept in touch and helped answer any questions.
The final step came a few months later. University enrolment – and this was a bigger step then I was expecting.
As I was in the London Zone (TeachFirst is a national program) I was partnered with UCL for the academic part of my training. They contacted me in April with log in details and I quickly signed in to see what it was all about. For a moment I was rather confused, I could see my offer but I had no actionable tasks.
These came through a few weeks later, including qualification checks, enhanced DBS and an occupational health questionnaire. I was fortunately unfortunate to have spent a year in Australia in 2015. This meant I had to provide a ‘certificate of good behaviour’ and address history for them as well. All of these checks you have to pay for yourself and it amounted close to £215 once I was done. I considered it an investment, and remembered all that they were doing for me.
And with that we are up to date.
A few things to note:
- Teach First aims for no days off during Summer Institute. They pack everything into two years and every moment counts. You can book off one day throughout the initial five weeks, don’t be expecting a walk in the park.
- I can’t not mention COVID. TeachFirst were exceptional in providing online learning options and transferred Summer Institute online as well. This will obviously be a big change as you don’t get to meet people and create the same friendships or have the interactive energy of actually being somewhere. It’s going to take a lot of self-motivation, but that’s all part of my character growth right?
- Finally, you don’t find out your school for a while. They say around the end of May or end of June you are likely to hear something. So I’ve been waiting in anticipation.
I hope this provided a detailed account of the steps through Teach First, please leave a comment if you have any questions.
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