Finding a school that feels right for you can take some time. You often don’t get to choose the school where you do your teacher training, so the emphasis is on learning your craft and learning what kind of school you’d like to work in when you qualify.
The phrase in the sector is ‘school fit’. Many do find the school that fits them in the training year but it is not always the case.
One of the requirements for completing teacher training is to have exposure at two contrasting schools.
Joe Nicolson, Computer Science teacher and former IT business owner, and Charlie Higgins, Now Teach’s Senior Programme Manager, share their experience of finding the right school.
Joe, what placement schools did you train to teach in?
One of the requirements for completing teacher training is to have exposure at two contrasting schools. My first placement was an inner-city co-ed London school, so the definition of a ‘contrasting school’ for me was either a single-sex faith school or an independent school.
My training school did not have links to appropriate placement schools, so I organised things through my contacts. I found a place at a boys' school in South London, where I spent the half term after Christmas until mid-February.
The experience was transformational.
What happened?
Before leaving for my second placement, I tried a specific teaching approach with my Year 11 group. Feedback was good and there was a germination of a seed that “I might be able to teach”.
I felt more confident about teaching and more confident about where I wanted my career to go.
At my second school, this seedling flourished into something that convinced me I could teach and I could teach A-Level.
I felt more confident about teaching and more confident about where I wanted my career to go.
What was the contrasting school like?
The new school stretched me: new systems, a new photocopier, online classroom environments and different approaches to teaching. The contrasting school idea really works!
Much of the curriculum was new to me. I had never formally studied floating point number representation or Dijkstra’s shortest path algorithm. But I still had to stand up in front of sixth-formers and sound convincing!
My badge of recognition came early when one of the students said, “Thank you for the lesson, sir.” Apparently, a complement only meted out to, “real teachers”.
I went into the second school placement thinking that I would absolutely love it. I thought that would be where I wanted to work for the rest of my teaching career. But while I enjoyed the experience I also missed the kids at my training school.
The contrasting school idea really works! The new school stretched me.
Did the different experiences help when you were applying for jobs?
The real benefit to me was the realisation of the type of environment I wanted for my second year: teaching lots of GCSE and teaching A-Level
I had to leave leave my training school due to the lack of opportunities to teach A-level which was a shame.
But the experience guided my filtering when searching for jobs and prompted me to get the role where I am now – a school with a strong group of 60 boys at GCSE and a mixed Year 12 cohort of 30 A-level students.
Charlie, you talk to lots of Now Teachers about 'school fit'. What advice would you give anyone starting at a new school?
The first thing to say is to make sure you do some fact-finding beforehand to understand as much as possible about a school. This is true whether you are applying for initial teacher training or early career roles.
Take the time to read the school website and any published Ofsted reports. Try to arrange a school visit to get a feel for the culture there and speak to others to gain insight.
If you can take the time to understand the school context, you will be in a much better position to make a choice, if you have one, and make a better start on Day One.
I’ve had lots of conversations with Now Teachers about how to choose a school. One of the great things about being part of Now Teach is you can speak to us or other career changers in the Network who may know the school. There's always someone to offer insight and guidance.
Do fact-finding beforehand to understand as much as possible about a school.
What do you recommend if you find yourself in a school you do not like?
Try to pinpoint what the challenges are and whether they are within your control. Are there changes that you can make to improve your experience? There will likely be some things you can change and some you cannot.
If you are in your training year, it's important to remember that you'll have contrasting experiences coming up, and that will give you a clearer idea of what you will like.
Alongside your training provider and mentors, you can explore your experience with your Now Teach Programme Manager, and we can connect you to coaches for 1-1s sessions.
It can't be said enough that schools can be very different from each other.
Each school is like its own little village or community. As Joe said, teacher training is setup to help you get different experiences – you'll train in at least two schools.
It can't be said enough that schools can be very different from each other.
It can be helpful to be very deliberate about how respond to these contrasting experiences. Keep a note of the situations, policies and approaches that work best for you (as well as those that don't work for you) and keep this in mind when you are looking for permanent positions.
Often a change, whether big or small, can make all the difference in feeling that you really fit into a school.
Now Teach can help you at every stage of your career transition - from applying to teacher training to applying to jobs after training.