Deciding to leave your current career for life in the classroom can be daunting. Check out these top tips from education charity Teach First on retraining as a teacher and putting your industry experience to work in the classroom:
1) Know how to transfer your skills
You won’t be starting from scratch in a new career in teaching. Whatever your background the skills and competencies you have gained will be essential, especially for engaging and inspiring pupils. Over 20% of those who joined the Teach First Programme last year came from other careers, bringing a wealth of skills and experience into the classroom.
2) Prepare yourself for immediate responsibility
Moving into the classroom can be a challenge. Changing career through Teach First harnesses your experience and enables you transfer your skills, so be ready to demonstrate your ability to communicate and be a leader.
3) Tell us about you
Many people consider teaching as they want to give something back and share their knowledge and experience and become positive role models. Whatever your motivation be prepared to be open and transparent about your background, and don’t be afraid to ask frank questions about what teaching involves. Share your stories of leadership and overcoming challenges and communicate your enthusiasm for heading in a new direction.
4) Look at your options
There are many different routes into the classroom. As a charity, Teach First offers a Leadership Development Programme which is focused on supporting pupils from low-income backgrounds. As part of this, our teachers are provided with a salary while they are training in schools over two years, as well as receiving a full teaching qualification (PGCE) and Qualified Teacher Status (QTS) after the first year.
Teach First recruit on a rolling basis and have a team dedicated to supporting career changers through the application process. For more information, visit their website.
You can also find the current opportunities being advertised by Teach First on TipTopJob here.