‘Step into Teaching’ – Feedback from i-teachers Graduates!

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At i-teachers we pride ourselves on our personalised approach, always ensuring our graduates are placed in the best possible roles. This often involves visiting schools and college to catch up.

It is incredibly important to us to ensure that our graduates are thriving in their placements, so we love hearing their feedback and advice for others who are considering a career in teaching.  In this blog we tracked down a few of our fantastic graduates, based in Manchester and South London!

If you are considering applying for one of our graduates roles, check out what some of this year’s graduates have to say!

Q1 – What advice would you give to anyone considering a career in teaching?

‘’Gain experience in a school/College first, I feel way more confident. I now understand the curriculum and how schools run on a day-to-day basis, I am feeling very prepared for teacher training in September.’’ – Adam

‘’This role has helped me understand fully the role of a primary teacher. I volunteered before this placement but paid experience will give you more responsibility. Through doing this role I could answer every scenario question confidently in my PGCE interview, which I would have really struggled with before.’’ – Ashleigh

“It has been very beneficial for me to look at different teaching styles, it has been really positive so you can see how different styles work for different students!” – Yamin

“I think for me it is knowing the age you want to teach! It is really important to know when you go into teaching is if you prefer primary or secondary education. Understanding which parts you enjoy, ensure that you know which type of role that you want to go into!  For any graduates looking to get into teaching I’d recommend working with i-teachers who are fantastic with communication you are quick to contact and offer support in unfamiliar situations! The timesheets are really clear too, and help with my organisation in what can be a really hectic time!’’ – Russell

Q2 – What have you learnt about teaching/education that you didn’t know before this experience?

‘’You have to have a passion for the subject to be successful, if you are really into your subject the students can tell.’’ – Mohammed

‘’Tailoring the topic to the individual pupil’s interests really helps them to remember difficult topics.’’ – Adam

“I think it is the actual goal that they have, it’s actually quite original. The fact that the school focus on employability, it’s actually worth it.”  The people and staff here are really good people.” – Yamin

Q3 – What have you enjoyed most about the role?

‘’Seeing the students understand a topic that they struggled with. Working with a cohort of graduates has been great and supportive.’’ – Lydia

‘’Building rapport with students (even though there are lots of them) and bonding over subject knowledge. All teachers have respected our positions. Having good resources to hand has helped and understanding changes in the curriculum.’’ – Mohammed

“The thing I enjoy most is the interventions, so this is where you take a small number of kids and work with them in a 1:1 session. Students are quite active, so when you get them into a smaller group they are more productive. On a 1:1 or 3:1 basis you can see that they really want to learn and ask some really interesting questions. This is really fulfilling as I get to teach a child and they hear it from me, in a different way, and they understand it (the subject) now.” – Russell

Q4 – Do you feel like you have made an impact to pupils?

Yes! Mainly with their own confidence, the exam results will show soon. All pupils feel incredibly lucky to have us as tutors and always ask for extra sessions. We have all seen pupils overcome barriers and understand topics they couldn’t grasp in class. – (Mohammed, Lydia, Adam and Martin)

“I hope I made an impact on the GCSE students and made them want to further pursue physics. Yesterday the school had a trip and some students didn’t go so we had a day looking at Black Holes. It was a fun revision lesson and the students seemed to really enjoy it.’’- Yamin