Francesca Stanton-Reid works in a gym. Her duties are flexible, undemanding and fun. In six months’ time, however, she will face an abrupt and radical career change.
After six weeks’ training, she will be teaching maths in one of England’s toughest schools. Having graduated from Cardiff University with a 2:1 in neuroscience last summer, Ms Stanton-Reid, 22, is joining Teach First, a charity that places top graduates in challenging schools.
Daunting? No, she says, exciting. “I would not have done a PGCE [Postgraduate Certificate in Education]. I could not think of anything worse. I just don’t believe that is the way to become a teacher.”
She is sitting among two dozen Teach First participants in a small function room in a Cardiff pub for drinks, quiche and salad. Each has brought a friend who is studying maths or science, for which there is a national shortage of teachers.
Elin Cousins, who is studying for a master’s degree after taking a first in psychology at Cardiff, was unsuccessful when she applied to Teach First last year. It made her more determined; she reapplied and has won a place to teach science. Ms Cousins, 21, from Garnant in Carmarthenshire, West Wales, says: “I don’t come from a wealthy area I but had really good support from teachers. I want everyone to have similar opportunity to have a chance to realise their potential.”
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The shortage of specialist teachers presents a dilemma for Teach First. Children in the challenging schools where it places teachers must succeed in such subjects to get to a good university, and so the charity hires only exceptional graduates.
Applications have surged as Teach First, one of the few big graduate employers that is expanding rapidly, seeks to double in size over three years. More than 6,000 students from Britain’s leading universities applied for 780 places, with most vacancies filled by December; however, almost a hundred vacancies remain for maths and science teachers.
Its answer is not to dilute entry standards but to step up campus recruitment, with events such as the quiche supper. Recruiters insist that only those candidates who are able to meet its exacting standards are accepted.
At the charity’s headquarters near London Bridge, The Times observes as 16 candidates go through its demanding recruitment process. During a brief lunch break between interviews and assessment exercises, applicants are left in little doubt of how difficult they will find it if they succeeded.
Over sandwiches, Richard Aung, who taught science at a school in Hounslow, West London, under the programme, spells out how hard he found it, alone in charge of a classroom eight weeks after leaving university. Pupils swore and walked in and out of lessons, he says, and on one occasion he stayed up until midnight preparing a double science lesson, only to lose control of the class after five minutes.
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“They are called challenging schools for a reason,” he tells the candidates. “Every day you are challenged. You absolutely need to consider whether this is something you want to do.”
He says that as he got to know the most disruptive students and gained in experience, it did get easier, particularly in his second year.
Resilience to cope with such pressure is one of eight qualities of a great teacher that applicants must demonstrate. Some are obvious — subject knowledge, leadership, organisation, problem solving — others less so. Humility is one, and so is working with others and candid self-evaluation.
Candidates split into groups for a role-play exercise, acting out a staff-room meeting. As they face one another across a square table, several display elaborate good manners as applicants struggle to walk a line between humility and leadership.
Another test involves a mock lesson, seven minutes of teaching a chosen subject. Assessors act the parts of teenagers to test how graduates respond to classroom scenarios.
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Using a ruler and marker pen, one draws a graph on a small whiteboard to show the displacement vector of translating shapes. Another asks assessors to stand and turn around as he demonstrates how three-dimensional shapes are rotated.
A third sticks up cartoon drawings of a brown-eyed mother and father above a blue-eyed baby in a nappy for a short biology lesson on how characteristics are inherited. After the exercises, candidates evaluate how they did. If they performed poorly, they may redeem themselves by recognising a weakness and showing a readiness to address it. The exacting standards and the blunt warnings of the challenges appear not to deter the participants. If anything, several appear more determined to succeed.
Relaxing afterwards, Nabila Jiwa, 21, who is studying psychology at the University of St Andrews and wants to teach science, says: “I really like the ethos behind it and the opportunity to work in an area of educational disadvantage.”
The leadership and development part of the master’s degree for which Teach First participants study attracted Stefan Trimble, 21, a biology student at the University of Leeds. His hope is to spend two years teaching, seek a senior position in the pharmaceutical industry and return to education later.
The candour that candidates find appealing rather than off-putting is central to the charity’s mission. Staff never conceal how tough the job can be, just as they insist that every teacher must have all the qualities they seek.
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“We will never lower the bar because we won’t jeopardise what Teach First do,” Katie Mort, the charity’s senior selection officer, says.