Advice from our Trainees

“My advice is speak to as many different people in your school as possible, especially outside of your department. Also observe other lessons that aren’t in your department. Get involved in as much as possible outside of teaching. Extra-curricular clubs, duties, form groups as this really helps you develop good relationships with students.

Be brave! Whether it’s delivering a lesson, giving out a detention or rewarding a pupil it will feel daunting but be brave and confident and it should always work out well.”  

Helen – PE – Trainee

“Take everything in your stride, be organised and ask lots of questions.”

Sarah – Maths – Trainee

“Obviously, with English there is a great deal of reading involved.  Therefore my main advice would be to try and get ahead of this if you can by reading/re-reading the excellent and challenging GCSE texts that you may possibly teach e.g., Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde, A Christmas Carol, The Lord of the Flies etc.

As well as this, make sure you engage with mateial about teaching in general which will give you lots of support and structure, especially within the first few weeks where you start taking on teaching time.”

Hania – English – Trainee

“The best piece of advice I would give is to be organised, and use your time wisely. Keep on top of university work, lesson plans, reflections etc., during free time. There are a lot of small tasks required which, if kept on top of, the rest of the workload becomes much easier to manage.

I have read some absolute horror stories about trainee-teachers’ workloads in schools outside the Tame River Eductional Trust, but with good time-management and support from school, the faculty, your mentors and trainers, this has not been the case for me at all.”    

Nathan – Maths – Trainee
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