Congratulations to history student Eve on securing a place on the Teach First starting in July 2019! Eve is currently enjoying her summer holidays and preparing for her last year of university. We caught up with Eve while she was planning her dissertation on New Labour's media management! Here she shares with us how she met Teach First at the Bright Network Festival, her application process and her reasons for joining Teach First.
Why did you apply to Teach First?
I wanted to be a teacher throughout sixth form. Therefore, I primarily wanted to join Teach First for the teacher training. In addition to getting some extremely valuable teacher training I also strongly agreed with their mission to end educational inequality. I felt that in joining Teach First I could really make a difference to children in socio-economically deprived areas. Another motivation for joining their Training Programme was that the programme accelerates personal growth and teaches a whole host of valuable skills you wouldn’t usually spend time building.
What was the application process like?
Initially, you have to submit an online application. From there you get invited to an assessment centre. There are three stages to the assessment centre: firstly, you have to complete a competency-based interview; secondly, you have to engage in a group project and, thirdly, you will engage in a roleplay scenario. My roleplay scenario was me having to deliver a lesson to two assessors who would pretend to be children. I had to give a 7 minute lesson on the Magna Carta. I decided to only teach three key points of the Magna Carta to the “children” and then spend the rest of the time going over these points again. It was quite strange and difficult; the assessors even pretended to write all over their desks and I had to tell them to stop!
Did you find the Bright Network FESTIVAL useful?
Yes! The festival was great, it was an opportunity for me to speak to Teach First before I had even begun my application! When I got into the festival I went straight to speak to Teach First before anyone else and they even emailed me after saying how wonderful it had been to chat. I left feeling that I had very much bonded with the Teach First ambassadors and with a real desire to get onto their Training Programme ! I also used the opportunity to browse around and investigate some other firms and industries I hadn’t considered before. I spoke to a lot of law firms and to a couple of people about marketing too but, after having spoken to Teach First at the start, I had very much made my mind up.
What three tips would you give to your fellow Bright Network members?
- Definitely investigate your options, don’t constrain yourself to just one career path when you are making applications.
- Use the avenues of help that are offered like the Bright Network festival or your university careers events. Both Bright Network and many careers services have loads of advice online to help you out not to mention all the practice tests for things like maths!
- Apply to loads of things.
What was the hardest interview question you faced?
Why do you want to work with children?
