As a new and growing organisation, we are aware that many schools have not worked with us before. This page features feedback from some partners that we have worked with, giving their view on working with us and our Now Teachers.
Our mission is to attract and recruit experienced successful people to change career into teaching. We support Now Teachers, training providers, schools, and the wider education system to realise the full potential of career-changers in education.
As part of our mission, we speak to mentors of Now Teachers to make sure their trainees are making good progress and to gather feedback from one of the people who knows them best in school. We can also offer support to mentors, as appropriate.
The following quotes are taken from a recent evaluation project with our founding partner, Ark, about working with Now Teach.
COLLABORATING WITH NOW TEACH
Terri Slater, Former Secondary Professional Tutor at Ark Teacher Training
One of the strengths of Now Teach are the Programme Managers. They are a sounding board for trainees, and the mentors and tutors, and they have helped me where there’s been a trainee issue I just can’t work out. They’re outside of the training provider and school situation, so we have different conversations, and they help problem-solve by giving a different perspective.
They are also good at preparing trainees for the experience of changing career to teaching. Now Teach understand the change curve, and that it’s hard to go from being expert professionals to complete novices. The Programme Managers are there to listen and explain to trainees that what they are feeling is normal.
The Now Teach setup is not here to intrude on what we are doing as trainers – it’s wrap–around support from the career-change perspective, with some sessions bringing trainees up-to-speed on big education issues through some great speakers.
We give them great training and CPD but those speakers are a special part. Trainees have always raved about Tom Bennett and Craig Barton. We have a particular way and theory at Ark, which we think is the best for training, but even when Now Teach sessions weren’t directly in line with what we did, the career changers value being exposed to different ways of thinking.
Now Teach also provide extra support for trainees – their wellbeing coach helped a number of my trainees. I don’t think I wrote a wellbeing support plan for our career- changers without including Now Teach’s additional support, especially the pastoral support from the Programme Manager.
I sometimes couldn’t speak to a trainee for a few weeks, so knowing they had Now Teach for additional support was really appreciated by both me and the trainees. And then there’s additional options, like voice training, that we don’t offer, and which are just quite special.
My advice is to work with Now Teach, collaborate and not to be apprehensive of them. They want career-change trainees to have a great experience as they qualify and stay in teaching, just like we all do.
