Teacher recruitment in the UK is at a crisis point. I have joined with a group of colleagues to launch an INTERN programme for schools in the UK, largely because teacher recruitment has been allowed to slip to levels that are too low for our future needs. I have long believed that the UK should create a surplus of teachers because their skills, their language, and their approach are welcomed all round the world.
So we are providing a route for new graduates to Try Teaching. Anyone who wants to can contact us and we will try to get them a school place, where they can see if the profession is right for them. They don’t have to commit to making teaching their career but we do ask them to commit to taking the experience seriously and, if they become interested, we can provide pre-training support and help them along their way into becoming licensed for a career – at home or abroad. This is an intern program that ensures that they get paid fairly too.
We need to attract more graduates to the career of teaching by removing the high cost and high risk barriers to entry to ITT which leads to too many graduates prematurely ruling themselves out of teaching as a career. We can do this by offering these graduates a low risk, paid opportunity to gain a real and valuable experience of working in a school.
The GTi scheme is about identifying and supporting graduates who are qualified, motivated and committed to make a difference in the classroom for THE LONG TERM. We seek career teachers, teachers who will still be in the classroom, 2 years from now, 5 years from now and 20 years from now.
And any interested schools can contact us and we’ll provide you with interns who are hungry to learn.
Go to TryTeaching.org if I have captured your interest.
