Welcome to the
London Region
www.teachfirst.org.uk Teach First is a Registered Charity, Number 1098294
Message from the Regional Director While not a Londoner myself, I first came to the region in 2003 inspired by the only graduate programme I had seen which offered the possibility of making a tangible difference to the society we all live in at the same time as offering meaningful professional development opportunities. The two years I spent in the classroom at the Bexley Business Academy, near Dartford, was shocking in the extent of the disadvantage many children face day to day in one of the world’s wealthiest cities. But it was also truly inspiring and rewarding seeing first-hand the progress that it is possible to make with individuals who have written off their education and, unwittingly, many of their future options. As Teach First enters its tenth year, the opportunity to make that difference to the achievement and aspirations of young people across London is now more important than ever. The good news is that through our close partnerships with schools facing challenging circumstances all across the region we have been part of success stories that show that children from any background can succeed when they are supported by consistently high expectations and committed, inspirational teachers. Now we must make step changes in the impact we can have while continuing to learn more about how to address the root causes of educational disadvantage: we are delighted you are joining us to take up this challenge! The two year Leadership Development Programme you are embarking on will challenge you, help you grow and give you an incredible sense of accomplishment. As well as training and supporting you to maximize the impact you can have during this time, you will have opportunities to develop as teachers and leaders who take responsibility for continuing to influence and deliver change both inside and outside of the system, wherever your own leadership journey takes you. We hope you seize as many of these opportunities as possible. Tom Rose ’03 Ambassador Regional Director
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Message from the Regional Training Provider We would like to take this opportunity to welcome you warmly to the London Region on behalf of The London Region Training Partnership which is made up of Canterbury Christ Church University [being the lead partner], The Institute of Education and King’s College London. The universities have a strong track record of delivering outstanding Initial Teacher Education which is personalised to meet your individual needs. By joining us, you will be working with a team of tutors who have first-hand knowledge and experience of developing teachers who will make a difference to children’s education and therefore to their life chances. The training year is hugely demanding. It will require resilience and commitment but you will be rewarded at the end by knowing that you have achieved QTS (Qualified Teacher Status) and a PGCE (Postgraduate Certificate in Education) as a Teach First participant and that you will be making an impact on the lives of many children. We are looking forward to working with you. Susan Leighs, Helen Gourlay & Jane Lee Programme Directors for Canterbury Christ Church Kings College and IOE
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Overview of the Region As a region we cover a huge area in and adjacent to Greater London, spanning from Slough and Hillingdon in the West, Essex and Barking in the East, and parts of Hertfordshire and Enfield in the North and Croydon and Kent (within the M25) in the South. The size and diversity of our region means that we are able to constantly develop our understanding of educational disadvantage and how this may be experienced in different communities and schools, whether that is in the inner city borough of Tower Hamlets or Basildon in Essex. This puts us in a great position as a movement of participants, ambassadors, employees and schools to understand how we can make a difference to pupils’ lives, informed by our partnerships with schools and teacher training providers and the context of each local community. London is a diverse, busy and expansive metropolis and the schools our participants work in cover a large proportion of it. However as individual participants, you will each have very different experiences of the region. Some will be placed more centrally, closer to ‘inner-city’ London; but around half of our participants are placed in Outer London boroughs and parts of adjacent counties both inside and beyond the M25. These figures are set to increase as we expand further to address our mission, so participants may be placed anywhere across the London region: our priority is to secure placements that will enable you to fulfil the needs of schools and pupils. Wherever you are placed you will soon learn that for many of your students, the London of Westminster, the West End, the South Bank and the City is as far beyond their horizons as New York or Paris. As a cohort you will work together in clusters (North, South, East, West and Central) and you will have the opportunity to share your varying contexts with your clusters and the region as a whole. Your colleagues, your university tutors and the Teach First team will support you in maximising the impact you can have as a teacher and leader in your classroom, and discuss with you how best to work within your particular school setting and community.
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This map locates all of our 2011-12 partner schools.
This map shows the density areas of socio-economic deprivation. NB London boroughs only.
6 | Teach First London Regional Welcome
Interesting facts about the London region • London is the region where Teach First was first launched in 2003 and is home to nearly 50% of the 2011 national cohort • We are currently made up of 672 participants; 288 ‘10s and 383 ‘11s. • We currently work in around 150 primary and secondary schools. • The take-up of Free School Meals (a proxy for socio-economic disadvantage) is nearly 8% greater than the national average in London region primary schools and nearly 10% greater in secondary schools (source Department for Education, 2011) • Regarding ethnic diversity in the region, the average percentage of children entering primary schools in London boroughs whose first language is known or believed to be other than English is 46%, almost 30% higher than the national average. In the borough of Tower Hamlets, that figure rises to 80%, but is much lower in areas of the London region in Kent (8%), Hertfordshire (12%) and Essex (5%) (source Department for Education, 2011)
To find out more about the London region visit: www.timeout.com/london www.hidden-london.com www.tfl.gov.uk www.visitlondon.com
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School Profiles
Crown Woods College Eltham Crown Woods College is a larger than average secondary in Eltham, South East London. It has employed Teach First participants since 2003 and currently has two ‘11s and four ‘10s as well as a range of ambassadors from different cohorts. Crown Woods School moved from an old, 1950s building (very similar to Grange Hill!) to a brandnew, state of the art campus at Easter 2011. On moving from the old building to the new, the school adopted an innovative new structure of ‘mini schools’. Crown Woods College is now formed of three mini schools for pupils aged 1116, each with about 450 pupils, as well as a Sixth Form college. The College has an overall Principal and each school has its own Head of School, its own building, a curriculum specifically tailored to the pupils in each college, a different timetable and a different colour on the uniform. Seeing the move from the School to the College was a great experience. I enjoyed the chance to work in a faculty made up of staff teaching different subjects who were able to work together more collaboratively given the smaller scale of each mini school. The relationships between pupils and teachers improved as the smaller buildings foster a greater sense of community and the College overall became a much calmer and more purposeful environment as the mini schools have become able to better cater for the individual needs of each pupil. Ross Tranter ’09 Ambassador
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West Drayton Primary School Hillingdon West Drayton Primary School, in Hillingdon, has taken on four primary participants in the three years Teach First has been working in primary schools. There are currently two ’10 participants and two ’11 participants in post. I can't speak highly enough of the school community and the measures it is taking to combat the educational disadvantage that we are all facing in our classrooms. The staff are driven, enthusiastic and extremely hard-working, thus making it an inspiring and incredibly motivating place to work. The school’s creative curriculum, in which most of the subjects are focused around a core text, leads to impressive, interactive and transformational displays and school performances outside of the classroom (when I came to visit during the Summer Institute, the entrance hall was, quite literally, a jungle, in preparation for the Summer performance of 'The Jungle Book'). It also leads to innovative, and interactive lessons inside the classroom, all of which combine to capture the imagination and enthusiasm of the pupils and instill in them an interest and passion for learning. Suffice it to say, their effort has been recognised by Ofsted which deemed it Outstanding in its latest inspection. Hannah Folan ’10 participant
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Participant Stories I get through my first two lessons relatively unscathed. I've only got 6 pupils coming back for Mr. McCormick's lunchtime club (a.k.a detention) and I've only got 3 phone calls to make to parents. The rest of the morning passes in a flurry of surreal conversations about the validity of God, how Hitler lost his testicle and how Chelsea are definitely (according to Mehmet) better than Manchester Utd. And I'm supposed to be teaching English!
ick Sam McCoipranm t
’10 Partic on School a South Lond at ng Teachi
Then it's time for 8x2. I've prepared my resources, I've marked their books (at the expense of year 7; needs must sometimes), I've re jigged my seating plan. Today they're going to work. Today they will learn. I've been thinking about what the collective term for a group of year 8 students should be; I settled on cacophony. "Sir what are we doing today?"
5:59a.m. Is it just me, or does everyone wake up just before their alarm goes off? I clamber out of bed, navigate my way to the bathroom. Normal ablutions out of the way I attempt to get dressed, spend 5 minutes trying to button up my shirt before I realise it's inside out. Today is going to be one of those days. I throw the lunch I made last night into my bag, grab the box of unmarked year 7 books I intended to finish before bed and leave the flat. I get to work just before 7 and sort out my resources for the day. I'm teaching 5 out of 6 periods today and I'm on duty at break, so I need to make sure my lessons are ready before the day starts. I've got 8x2 for a double lesson after lunch and I know that one particular pupil will be the first to point out even the slightest chink in my armour. The old boy scout adage runs through my head: be prepared. The biggest understatement since Mrs. Noah said "it only looks like a light shower". And so it begins. "David, can you tuck your shirt in thanks" "Prince, Becca, Chelsea; gum in the bin" "Joseph your tie is for wearing around your neck, not your head; you're not Rambo!" ("Sir who's Rambo?") 10 | Teach First London Regional Welcome
"Sir I ain't sitting there" "Nah man, nah, he stinks" "Sir do you hate us" "Sir are we your worst class" I think to myself, "sit down and I'll tell you, yes you are, no he doesn't (well he does a bit), no I don't hate you (just passionately dislike at times) and yes you are my worst class". But I smile, calmly ask them to take their seats and reward the good behaviour with positive praise rather than focus on the bad behaviour. Deep breaths. From across the room I hear JJ talking to Isaac. I prepare myself to ask him, for the thousandth time to be quiet when I hear him say "nah, bruv. Churchill didn't become Prime Minister until after the war had started. It was Neville Chamberlain who was in charge at the beginning innit". And that poorly articulated sentence makes it all worth it. The early mornings, the late finishes, the impact on my weekend and social life. The day ends and I pop next door to see Dan (the other Teach First teacher in my department) to swap our trials and tribulations. We sit down to plan for tomorrow and put on the power ballads. It's going to be another late one. But I wouldn't change it for the world...
explanation that I was clearly not a female, and certainly not a married one. And sure, when the mountain of marking begins to prevent natural sunlight from entering your room at home, it is easy to become a little glum. But, as cheesy as this is, when I saw the enjoyment on their faces as they chased a pack of basset hounds around an enclosure on the school trip to the Country Fair today, all the frustrations and anxieties of the job didn’t even register.
Jonny Walker
‘11 Participant Teaching at an East London Pr im
ary School
It is the third week of September, and today I both enjoyed and endured my first school trip. I’ve been feeling more assured in my behaviour management this last week, so this road test would illustrate how well I’ve done so far. ‘Road’ proved to be the operative word, since our trip consisted of 3 hours on public transport in London rush hour: the grave look on the driver’s face as sixty of us hustled to get on the bus was matched only by mine as we got off. One of my girls wept quietly that somebody stole her onion seeds. Three boys sang the same four lines of a song on a constant loop for a solid half hour. Inexplicably, I received my first Christmas card of the year, which had the ‘P.S.’ that I’ve been ‘a very good teacher’. There was a time when I would have been flattered by their sweet messages but now I see that it is probably part of some strategy the child was deploying to get what they wanted out of me. Well I saw through it – Mr Walker 1, children of East London, 0. There have been ups and downs since I started with my Year 4 class but I can say without doubt I am enjoying it. Sure, it was frustrating when I read that children had written my name as Mrs Walker in their books, even after I dealt out the laborious
It really is a job of two halves. There is the front stage performance when you’re with the kids, where the learning, the movie-moments and the laughter take place. And there is the backstage; less glamorous but absolutely essential to the smooth running of the show. I’m starting to realise now that the two come as a pair and if I’m going to have anything like a ‘standing ovation’ by July, I’m going to need to be memorising my lines and, most importantly, caring for my voice. Now that we are settling into routines, I’m starting to see even more effort going into their work. We’ve had our meet-and-greet time and we are starting to roll up our sleeves and get stuck in to the curriculum. Of course, I am very much still finding my feet but with each day I am feeling more confident, more competent and more like an actual teacher. If I was to describe it to my literacy class, I’d say it gives me a warm gooey feeling inside. Now I’ve started to convince myself I’m a good teacher, I can dedicate myself to making sure the kids learn in the best possible way – that is, in an inquisitive, creative and motivated class environment. I am exhausted and even as I write this, I have three lessons still to plan for tomorrow morning. I have a burgeoning headache and I am really tired but still, still, I am really looking forward to getting into work at 7 tomorrow morning to get ready for the kids’ arrival. You can’t get that with many jobs.
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See you in June!