Teach First

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Teach First
Type Non-profit organization
Founded 2002
Headquarters London
Key people Brett Wigdortz, Founder
Julia Cleverdon, Chair
Website teachfirst.org.uk

Teach First is an independent educational charity United Kingdom, Reg. No. 1098294, founded in 2002. Its mission is to address educational disadvantage by transforming exceptional graduates into effective, inspirational teachers and leaders in all fields. Teach First targets graduates who would not normally consider a career in teaching and places them in what it considers challenging schools across England - where:

  • More than 50% of their pupils are from deprived backgrounds according to the respected IDACI index of childhood deprivation, thereby more accurately prioritising those schools with higher levels of deprivation

And/or

  • Schools with the lowest levels of attainment in regards to the 5+ A*-C measure - i.e. schools whose results fall in the lowest third of the national distribution.

Since launching in 2002, Teach First has placed increasing numbers of participants in schools each year with 163 joining in 2003, up to 560 in 2010 - and has an ambassador community (alumni) of over 1,200.

Teach First is now rated seventh in the Times Top 100 Graduate Recruiters, with the number of applicants rising from 3,000 in 2009 (with 22% of applicants accepted to the programme) to around 5,000 in 2010 (with 11% accepted).

In 2010, Teach First climbed to 7th place on the league of Times Top 100 Graduate Employers.

Contents

[edit] History

In spring 2002, a pro bono study for London First and Business in the Community considered how businesses could work together to improve secondary education in London. It came up with the idea of adapting the US Teach For America scheme as a means of attracting more teachers to teach in the most challenging schools - which typically have a greater difficulty recruiting and retaining teaching staff. By setting up a scheme which provided graduates with access to some of the world's top businesses, and focused on developing leadership skills alongside teaching, the study proposed that the scheme would attract graduates to commit to teaching for two years and gain marketable skills for leading in whatever field they chose afterwards. As one of the lead consultants on the study, Brett Wigdortz took a 6 month sabbatical from McKinsey to write the proposed organisation's business plan and try to get it started. During this time, he was supported by Rona Kiley, head of business and education at London First, and George Iacobescu, chief executive of Canary Wharf, who provided the first £25,000 in funding. In June 2002, Schools Minister Stephen Twigg MP threw in his support and Wigdortz left his job at McKinsey to become Chief Executive Officer of Teach First, with Kiley and Iacobescu joining as the charity's trustees. The programme was officially launched on 15 July 2002 at Cabot Hall, Canary Wharf.

The first group of participants was taken on in 2002-03, and started their training in the summer of 2003. They numbered 184 graduates mainly from the Russell Group of Universities and went to 46 schools in London. In 2006 the scheme expanded to Greater Manchester; in 2007 to the Midlands; in 2008 to Merseyside to create a North West office; in 2009 a Yorkshire and a Humber office were opened, and the Midlands office was split into East and West regions.

[edit] Recruitment Process

Applications for Teach First can be made online. Candidates are expected to meet the requirements of the equivalent of a 2:1 degree and 300 UCAS points.

If they are successful in the first application phase, candidates will be invited to the Assessment Centre. Here their potential to develop into effective teachers and inspirational leaders will be assessed against 8 core competencies: humility, respect and empathy, interaction, knowledge, leadership, planning and organising, problem solving, resilience and self-evaluation.


Year # of Applicants
 # of Incoming Teachers
 Position in Times Top 100 Graduate Employers
2005 183 19th
2006 265 16th
2007 272 14th
2008 373 9th
2009 ~3000 485 8th
2010 4,994 560 7th
2011 770


[edit] Deferred Entry Schemes

The Teach First Deferred Entry Scheme works through partnerships between Teach First and Accenture, Barclays Capital, the Civil Service Fast Stream, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Procter and Gamble. Anyone successful in their application via this route is promised a job with one of these organisations after successfully completing the Teach First programme. In order to apply via this route, one must apply directly to Teach First and one of the participating organisations. If they are offered positions by both then they have the unique opportunity to defer entry to the latter for two years, after participating in Teach First.

[edit] Leadership Development Programme

Teach First’s Leadership Development Programme is aimed at ensuring participants maximise their impact on pupil achievement in the short term and develop a set of transferable skills that will broaden their impact on educational disadvantage in the future.

A Teach First participant is expected to work at his or her placement school for two years. On completion of the Leadership Development Programme, participants graduate to become Teach First Ambassadors, and are encouraged to continue to address educational disadvantage through teaching or leadership positions in other fields. Successful completion and the award of Ambassador status requires the participant to gain Qualified Teacher Status and a postgraduate / professional graduate certificate in education (PGCE award) and complete their Newly Qualified Teacher year, as well as completing a Master's accreditted module of three units: Leading Learning, Leading People and Leading Organisations. Ambassadors also have the option to complete a further 90 credits delivered by Teach First's partner universities (the Institute of Education (London), University of Manchester and University of Warwick), focused on Urban Learning, Change Management and practice based projects and divided into 2 or 3 modules, to gain a Master's qualification in educational leadership.

[edit] First year

Before entering the classroom, participants attend the Summer Institute, the residential component of the initial teacher training. This lasts six weeks, with participants spending half the time studying and gaining teaching practice in the region they will be teaching in, and half the time studying alongside the whole national cohort on campus at University of Warwick.

In the first year, participants undertake a 70% teaching commitment in school, during which they are supported by Teach First, their partner universities and school mentors in training to achieve Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) at the end of the year, and a postgraduate / professional graduate certificate in education (PGCE award).

Professional and subject tutors from regional universities work alongside mentors in schools to ensure participants meet the qualification standards. Teach First Leadership Development Officers, all of whom are qualified teachers, provide an additional layer of support.

While teaching, participants also undertake Master’s accredited supplemental leadership training, which is delivered by Teach First and university assessed. This equips participants with qualifications in ‘Leading Learning’, ‘Leading People’ and ‘Leading Organisations’.

[edit] Second year

Over the school summer holidays, between the first and second years, the participants are assisted in gaining internships with a variety of organisations in the public, private and non-profit sectors. With the participants having qualified as teachers, participants move to a full teaching timetable but continue to be supported by Teach First and its partner organisations to set ambitious goals for the achievement of the pupils in their classes and enhance their leadership skills. As a Newly Qualified Teacher, participants receive payment through the main pay scale, it is not uncommon for participants to begin above the base point (M1) or to receive management points for taking on additional responsibility in their school. Throughout the programme, participants aim to develop their leadership skills within their school context. This is supported by Teach First leadership training delivered in partnership with Imperial College Business School, Manchester Business School and many other corporate partners.

[edit] Ambassador programme

All participants who successfully complete the two-year programme – including leadership as well as teacher training elements - become Teach First Ambassadors.

Teach First aims to empower, equip and mobilize all Ambassadors (alumni) to support the Teach First Mission by driving forward sustainable change in education from both inside and outside of the classroom. This is done through the following constituent parts of the Ambassador offer:

Teach On - A network of leadership development, training and support for our Ambassadors that remain in urban education.

Higher Education Access Programme for Schools - Opportunities for Ambassadors to support Gifted pupils from Teach First schools to progress to competitive universities.

Governance for change – Providing Ambassadors with leadership skill training whilst enabling them to maximize their long-term impact by serving on a school governing body.

Social Entrepreneurship Programme - Training, networking opportunities and mentoring for Ambassadors launching their own social ventures.

Policy First – Opportunities for Ambassadors to share insights on current education issues and help shape policy for the future.

Supporting Participants – Chances for Ambassadors to share their expertise and guidance with participants, helping to ensure that Teach First is built on a sustainable model.

Career Development – A series of tailored events and online resources to help support Ambassadors as they progress through their career.

On average since 2003, over 50% of Teach First Ambassadors stay in teaching beyond the two years and 67% of those placed since 2003 remain actively engaged with addressing educational disadvantage[citation needed].

In 2008, Max Haimendorf, an '03 Ambassador of Teach First, was appointed Head teacher of the new King Solomon Academy in Westminster, sponsored by Ark. At 29 he was one of the UK's youngest head teachers.

[edit] Current situation

The Teach First scheme was based solely in London until September 2006 when it expanded its reach across England by placing students into Greater Manchester schools.

Following the award of an expansion grant from the DCSF in Summer 2008, and a massive increase in its fundraising targets from other sources, Teach First is now in schools in six regions - Greater London, East Midlands, West Midlands, the North West, the North East and Yorkshire and the Humber. This includes schools in London, Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, Derby, Leicester, Birmingham, Solihull, Coventry, Greater Manchester, Merseyside, Newcastle, Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford, Doncaster and Wakefield.

In 2010, Teach First placed close to 600 graduates in teaching positions in 242 schools in challenging circumstances across England, making it the 4th largest recruiter of graduates in the UK. It hopes to place over 1,000 graduates by 2013 to reach over 300,000 pupils[citation needed].

In response to requests from social entrepreneurs in several countries across the world who are inspired by the Teach For America and Teach First model and want to replicate it in their respective countries, Teach For America and Teach First collaborated on a project with the pro-bono assistance of a team from McKinsey & Company. Together they sought to understand the experiences of other international organizations, the needs of the entrepreneurs who were seeking assistance, and the enablers of impact in our model. The results of the study was the creation of Teach For All. Teach For All is a global network of independent social enterprises that are working to expand educational opportunity in their nation by enlisting the most promising future leaders in the effort. Teach For All is currently supporting initiatives in Argentina, Brazil (from 2011), Bulgaria (from 2011), China, Israel, Peru, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Australia, Chile, Lebanon, Germany, and India.

[edit] See also

[edit] References

[edit] External links

[edit] Video clips

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