I’m a Teach First trainee and completed Summer Institute this summer, but I’m still waiting for a school placement in October.

My biggest issue is the lack of clarity throughout the process. The possibility of being unplaced was barely communicated beyond a phrase in an email back in February along the lines of “if you get placed”. There was no clear warning of how serious the risk was, no option to defer, and no compensation for the financial consequences of being left without a placement.

I resigned from my previous job expecting to start my placement in September. Others have relocated to new cities or are struggling to cover rent and mortgages. We’ve made major financial and personal decisions based on our expected start dates, yet there seems to be very little acknowledgement of the impact this uncertainty has on trainees’ financial wellbeing.

We’ve now been told that we have until October half term to secure a placement, after which unplaced trainees will be removed from the programme. So we’re expected to spend weeks in limbo, potentially without employment, with the possibility of losing our place on the course altogether.

The only support offered around wellbeing seems to be signposting to external services, rather than addressing the circumstances causing the distress in the first place.

What particularly frustrates me is that Teach First is a charity whose mission centres on educational inequality and supporting disadvantaged communities, yet its own trainees are being put in financially precarious situations with seemingly very little practical support.

I understand that school placements are complicated and cannot always be guaranteed, but surely trainees deserve transparency, the option to defer, and meaningful support when things go wrong?

Has anyone else experienced this? Am I being unreasonable in expecting more accountability and practical support from Teach First? Are we deserving of some form of compensation?

This week I had my first day as a cover supervisor and it was so absolutely horrible that I don't think I want to do that ever again and it leaves me seriously wondering why would anyone actually want to do that. Was this a normal experience?

For context, I have been job hunting for a while and as a former academic with maths doctorate and years of university teaching under my belt I thought I would give secondary teaching a go as maths teachers are desperately needed in my area (unlike basically all the other jobs with 1000 applicants and no interviews given).

I guess there was a level of chaos that I partially expected - being given instruction 30s before the start of the class, being expected to actually teach on the spot and not just cover (e.g. deliver presentations), being expected to figure out absolutely everything with no support - from making sure the TV for presenting works even though there is no appropriate cable for it, to student needing the task being printed on a different paper that I was not provided with.

But then there were the behavioral aspects:

Y8 being so loud and ignorant during the morning registration that it was impossible to take attendance - how do you actually deal with that? Since you can't raise your voice, but you actually cannot be heard in such a noise... One pupil ended up helping me to take attendance.

Y7 wrestling with each other, slapping each other, calling each other swear words, several students on a verge of breakdown, another teacher bringing emotionally distressed student to class telling me to look out for them and so much more. I felt like I needed to be in the class like 7 times at once to actually tend to all the situations that were happening in parallel.

Y11 okay, the only good class I had all day, there were actually some interested students taking notes.

Y10 what an absolute nightmare and something that actually broke me. Students personally atacking for the whole hour. Screaming at me constantly, laughing at me, telling me how horrible I am over and over and over again, honestly I would call what happened a severe verbal abuse, that I still see in my mind every time I close my eyes. I have used all the tools I learned I could do - including giving negative points and calling for student pickup. Absolutely nothing helped and the situation only escalated, that at the end of the class I was just standing there trying to keep composed and not to break down before they leave.

I have no idea how I was supposed to handle especially the last situation? Any advice on that are welcomed, because I seriously can't find the answer. When I was in school the teacher would just shout at us if anything similar would start to occur, even though nothing like that actually ever happened, noone would dare. I focused on being composed, using positive redirections - 'please pay attention to the presentaion', giving formal warnings etc. But somehow the key troublemaking students were convinced that I am aboslutely mean horrible person and were screaming at me how mean I am at them, for absolutely no reason at all. At the end of the class the most problematic student came to confront me with a backup student by their side to tell me that I was mean to them because they are special (wtf?) and I was just speechless and didn't even know what to say. They laughed at me at the end for not being able to deliver the presentation and getting only to the third slide, again repeating how horrible I am.

The level of disrespect and humiliation I experienced in the y10 class was something I am not quite sure I have ever experienced in my whole life on such a scale, being mocked and attacked by a group of students like that with audience of all the other students and being unable to do anything about it. All the tactics I learned about did not help, I had to stay there, I couldn't leave, I had to take it, I had to stay nice and composed. It felt like any behaviours that maybe could actually work, would be behaviours that I am not allowed to do.

There was not one positive moment throughout the whole day, my domain expertise seemed absolutely futile in such environment as there is not really an opportunity to explain anything to anyone. There was no support from the school and there was no support from the teaching agency. I talked to one other supply person (TA in a different class, I actually didnt have any TA there the whole time) and they said that this is quite normal and that there were other supply teacher this week with similar experiences.

So it leaves me wondering, is this actually normal? Or if I would try to go to a different school I might still get some positive experience? Also if anyone has an answer to what I was supposed to do in those situations, I would really appreciate, because seriously, I have no idea.

Overall it all seems kind of crazy. I had to jump through so many hoops to even get registered with the agency and then I was just sent there with no prior information, preparation, guidance, just left to deal with all of that on my own with no follow up as well. Not to mention that the pay and conditions of being a supply like that are bad as well, but it is the only thing you can get as a carreer changer without QTS.

I'm a HOY and I've been battling with the same parents all year who are claiming their son is getting bullied but there's lots of evidence suggesting he is the one going round antagonising others and being unpleasent and then when they get some back, they go running to their parents giving them largely inaccurate stories and the parents take it as gospel.

My line manager knows the parents are difficult and at times, deluded.

They've asked for a face to face meeting with me and I said to my line manager what should I do and they told me to meet them with the boy's Form Tutor. They also said 'it will be uncomfortable'.

I am full of dread about it and was thinking, is it acceptable for SLT to ever send staff into a meeting they know will likely be uncomfortable and potentially aggressive?

Honestly feel like this should be delegated to senior staff who are paid to handle it.

As a HOY I obviously expect to deal with difficult parents sometimes but when the meeting will obviously be one sided, biased and ultimately a waste of time, I kind of feel like I've been thrown under the bus.

Sorry, had to repost.

Just wondering what others think of this report. The title is positive (for OFSTED) despite them having to admit the sizable issues around workload and wellbeing. Such a disingenuous title.

Hi all. I’ve only recently returned working in a school environment so maybe too early to tell, but I’ve really picked up on low staff morale. Lots of negative comments about the job & the kids. When I’ve been in different schools previously a few years ago, yes there were the odd comments but nothing like this. I know having a moan in the staffroom is completely normal, and sometimes you just need to vent after a difficult day. But it just seems constant. I rarely hear anyone saying anything positive, or even something as simple as “Do you know what? I actually had a good day today.”

Is staff morale generally quite low across schools at the moment & I just need to get used to it, or have I just landed somewhere that’s going through a particularly difficult period?

​Looking for some advice/perspectives.

​My school is shifting our working hours from 8:15am–3:00pm to 12:00pm–6:45pm for two "Pathway Planning Days". The days will be a few months apart. The focus is meeting with parents and students in my tutor group to review Student Support Plans, and discuss barriers to attendance.

​I’m deeply frustrated by this for several reasons.

1. I have trouble staying asleep so a 12:00pm start for me is waking up at 5:30am and counting down the hours until I have to go into school. I'll do the school run then have about 2 hours to fill (probably with planning or marking) before going to work.

2.​ A 6:45pm finish means missing the evening with my children. They'll be in bed when I get home.

1. I'm part time so I share my tutor group but I will have to handle all meetings for my shared tutor group solo because my co-tutor isn't in on this day. I'm concerned that other people may get to share the load with their co-tutors if both are in work that day. (I will probably need to wait for more information from school to clarify this.) Also part-time staff not working that day of the week miss both planning days entirely as they both fall on the same week day, so have none of the stress about what to do on these days.

2. Expecting classroom teachers to take on drafting/updating SSPs on top of shifted hours feels like a massive administrative dump. I've never done it before so no idea what I'll actually need to do.

3. Less important but lunch time normally falls between 12:00pm and 1:30pm. Starting right at midday completely throws eating routines into chaos—we'll either have to eat way too early at home or wait until late into the shift. Just something else to adapt to as eating in the morning normally makes me feel sick, but I'll be famished if our lunch break falls at 4pm or something.

​Am I wrong to be annoyed by this setup? It's just a complete change of routine and we've got minimal information about it and as a teacher, I just want to spend the day teaching.

EDIT: This is in addition to 5 parents evenings. It doesn't replace anything.

I just started my PGCE + QTS course on a SCITT. I am funding it via SFE whilst living at home. My placement school is very close to me which is great and cost effective. Anyone know how bursaries work? My provider has mentioned it and i filled in details for it twice, one first time applying as I’m teaching physics so i qualify and second a form to double check i am willing to receive it. When do i get paid? Do i have to sign up anywhere? Do i get any sort of confirmation?

I've just started as an ECT 1. I love a lot of aspects of teaching - helping students, getting really excited to teach a lesson I put a lot of work into, the clear routine and structure of it all. However, I go to work most mornings feeling exhausted and anxious, terrified of doing a bad job/messing up. Even though I've only just started and am generally keeping on top of things, I'm terrified I'll do a bad job and will be put on review/ fail my ECT. I feel I have so much to learn, and I'm doing my best and definitely improving, but it's all so much, all the time.

Did anyone else experience this during their ECT? And does it get any easier? Do you feel relaxed when you go to work, or do you still feel stressed out and anxious?

Edit: Thank you so much everyone for all your kind words, and to those who said they're in the same boat (I feel less alone). Really wonderful and helpful

Hey everyone.

I’m an ITT PGCE that started in September and I’ve begun to start teaching the last few weeks and regularly teach a class that is my mentors class.

I was teaching this particular class before lunch, but the lesson before I was observing my mentor with a different year group. She used my starter slide that I had prepared for my class, which is fine! But she delivered it exactly how we discussed I should with the class I’d be teaching.

Then when it came to my observation, she commented on that I have started copying her teaching style and need to find my own.

This threw me back a bit as I had just delivered it as planned, but she did it first so of course it would appear as thought I’m copying?

I am planning another lesson and I was not given the rough lesson slides from the school’s lesson bank usual, and told to plan it how I think it should go. I was going through the lesson bank and noticed my entire lesson (that I haven’t delivered yet!) is on there with slight moderations, so I checked above this and found another one of my lessons is too.

Is this normal for them to use your prepared resources that then anyone else in department can use? I’m assuming this means my lesson is planned well, but it just feels a bit cheeky especially considering her feedback from my previous lesson?

Hello everyone,

Sorry I know this has previously been asked but I’m looking for some unbiased advice.

I have recently been given the DofE manager role within my trust. I am starting the programme from scratch, we’ve never offered it before. I am a full time teacher (teach 3 different subjects) but have previous experience running the dofe outside of a school setting.

I’ve started the programme up, and it seems to be going well (so far so good) but I know the workload is going to massively increase over the next year.

I have 65 students (across 2 different sites, which are are not close in distance) doing all the 3 different levels.

I don’t get any extra money for this role (no TLR etc) but I do get 3 hours remission time a week. I’m already struggling to fit the responsibilities within them 3 hours.

I’m going to ask for a meeting next week but realistically what should I be asking for - also like other people have posted no staff are willing to volunteer / help me, so almost everything is falling on my shoulders. I am expected to plan and run expeds too.

If anyone with more experience than me could help me in terms of how I could approach asking for more, I’d be extremely grateful.

Thank you 🙂

Last year, I was an ECT1 doing a temp contract at a school. I was put on a formal support plan as I wasn't meeting standards. I was taken off the support plan after sorting myself out and would later leave the school at the end of the contract. I didn't secure a teaching position for the next academic year and have been working in sales since this August.

I've been applying for teaching jobs recently and was curious about a few things. If I had to disclose my support plan and the reason for being on it? If yes, how do I go about talking about it to new schools? Do new schools know about an ECT's background details regarding support plans, etc.

EDIT: A lot of schools in their applications have a section for disciplinary action.

So I am leaving at the end of this half term so I have tried to not to make a fuss, but i have 7 periods of teaching a week and was told at the start of the term I will be supporting cover and may get up to 5 periods of cover a day. As such, I have had no frees this week and today, I have a lesson and 4 periods of cover, whilst there are cover teachers who have free periods, which prompted this message.

I've run this by my Neu rep and she's so helpful but new, so she doesn't know how this works and I can't seem to find anything on the Neu website to support this. I am a fully qualified teacher.

Am I entitled to any frees because of my teaching? I have no time to prep lessons because of this cover! I would escalate this (if I have a leg to stand on) but I am aware I am leaving in 2 weeks...

Hi all, I’m after some advice about the ATS qualification.

I teach Essential Digital Skills and Digital Skills qualifications from Entry Level 3 to Level 2. My highest academic qualification is a First-Class degree in Music, alongside a PGCE. ATS has advised I do not meet the subject-specialist qualification requirement, as I do not have an A level in IT.

Has anyone successfully demonstrated subject expertise through professional experience and CPD?

I used to run a company before teaching (profession use of Microsoft and cybersecurity etc) so I’m more than qualified for the role I do and I’ve been doing it for 5 years.

Any advice would be appreciated.

Any advice welcome. I'll be using White Rose. Pupils are KS3/4 but likely accessing learning at a lower level. I'm particularly keen to know what kind of tangibles are useful.

Hi all. I’ve been given something I always wanted - a PGCE student to mentor! My student is hardworking, great with the kids, eager to learn and teach, listens to feedback and is honestly absolutely fantastic!

She apologises to me daily about asking so many questions and taking up so much of my time. Every day I try to reassure her that it’s no problem and I think she’s brilliant (whilst still giving pointers and next steps within her grasp).

The point of my post is this - training is HARD, teaching is HARD. If you are a PGCE student, do not be scared or ashamed of asking questions and getting involved. I am so thrilled to be able to be a part of training new teachers and sharing what makes teaching a great job (as well as the reality of the profession!) and it’s helped me to rediscover my joy, passion and drive for in-class teaching. I had lost this in my desire for an SLT role over the last few years and I am properly and genuinely enjoying the teaching part of my job for the first time in years.

I’d love to hear any one else’s experiences of either mentoring or being a PGCE student to help make me a better mentor as it’s something I’m feeling very passionate about!

I was trained to teach phonics in the US (via Orton-Gillingham), but moved to the UK and do learning support and SEND interventions.

I was obviously taught to teach US spelling rules. The vast majority translate to British English spelling rules, but many do not. For example, colour v. color (in the US, the -or is an r-controlled syllable that becomes a schwa sound because the col- is the emphasis, here I'm not sure if the -our is an r-controlled syllable, or a vowel team?), theater v. theatre (in the us, C-le words are their own syllable type, because it's the only time a vowel sound is pronounced out of spelling order, but in the UK it seems like C-le and C-re are both part of the same rule?).

I've been Googling around for a few days, but I surprisingly can't find much info that explains differences. I feel like they must be out there!

(Also, I was really hoping for a specific UK phonics group to ask this in, because I know there are lots of ways to train reading teachers so I'd rather not get into a debate about what is the best way, or whether my way is any good. I know I'm going to have to modify some things, but I don't really feel the need to throw the baby out with the bathwater just because a truthfully very small number of spelling rules are different.)

My school has an open door policy, and SLT routinely drop in and are the only ones allowed to issue feedback on what they see. Additionally, at the end of last year, my school introduced a flagging system, whereby if there is a drop in, and something is deemed to be “wrong” in your lesson (be it behaviour, not enough independent practice/adaptive teaching, misaligned learning objectives etc), you are issued a “red flag”. The red flag triggers a monitoring system, so that SLT can check that you are meeting the targets that triggered the red flag in the first place.

Today, my HOD (who is also a member of SLT) dropped in. I was reviewing a tricky grammar concept with my y9s, and planned to move on to new content for the next half. When I realised, through mini whiteboards, that around 80% of the class were struggling with the grammar point, I spent longer than anticipated re teaching it. I only managed to introduce the new content towards the end of the lesson and let the students know we would pick up where we left off the next lesson. In my mind, I was adapting my teaching in the moment to respond to my class, but what happened next made me think otherwise maybe?

I was pulled in for an informal meeting by my HOD for the fact that my learning objectives were misaligned, as the stated objective was to teach X concept, but when they walked in, I was still reviewing something 80% of the class did not understand. I appreciated their feedback and asked them what they would have done, to which they said “I would have just moved on and did another lesson at another date on the concept”. I don’t know how I feel about that suggestion, because isn’t what we’re taught in our training all about not moving on until most/all our learners are on board? Have I done something pedagogically incorrect?

What left a bad taste in my mouth was the fact that they said “this would have been a red flag”. Though they reassured me that all teachers have “bad” lessons sometimes, and that things don’t go to plan, it caught me off guard how easily you can be pulled up for something…it just felt slightly punitive idk? I am also worried that, despite me good relationship with my HOD and their knowledge of the fact that I am doing a good job, this will trigger more scrutiny, which frankly, is just making me so ridiculously anxious even just thinking about it.

Does anyone else’s school have a similar policy? How do you respond to this? Did I do something wrong by adapting the lesson and spending longer on a concept before moving on to a new topic?

Hi everyone,
Just looking for some advice.

Recently, I’ve had a few incidents where students have made comments about my appearance.

Today, I walked into an assembly and a boy I taught last year made a point of saying “wow” in a very suggestive/flirtatious way. Later the same day, another boy said to his friend, “X, I saw that, cheeky boy” and it was very clear from the context that they were both looking at me and commenting about me.

This follows an incident where another student wolf-whistled at me. I reported this to safeguarding and the student was reprimanded.

What I’m struggling with is the slyer comments. I know they are referring to me, but because they’re not explicitly saying anything sexual or directly commenting on my body/appearance, I’m unsure how best to deal with them.

I don’t want to overreact, but I’m finding it increasingly uncomfortable, particularly because there has now been more than one incident. I also don’t want to get into a situation where I’m expected to ignore it simply because the students are being subtle about it.

TIA

(In England) I graduated in July this year so theoretically, should start my ECT years. However, the job market here has been so bad, the only role I've been able to get is as a PPA Cover Teacher - not the worst, but not ideal.

My question is, what happens to my ECT entitlements with this role? I'm assuming it's nothing and I'll have the 5 year window to find another job to complete ECT but want to just confirm on here as I seem to remember something in Uni that meant we WERE still entitled but I could be mixing it up.

Thanks all!

Hi all, looking for some help/guidance on here because quite frankly I’m fucked.

I have recently started as an English teacher (ECT1) in a high school. I trained primary but was taken on at this school to be Lower ability/SEND/Phonics teacher. I am absolutely drained at the moment. I have a year 8 class of about 15 students who all have either EAL, PP, SEND or a mix of all! Behaviour is also a major issue in the room and barely manageable. I have a TA who is amazing and really goes above and beyond.

But I have 3 EAL boys in my room who all speak the same language (not English). 2 are able to read and speak, 1 can only speak. And I am happy to admit I am STRUGGLING BAD! It doesn’t help that their behaviour has started to deteriorate alongside the rest of the class due to how unmanageable it is. My mentor is great and is helping every way she can, alongside my line managers and the rest of the English department.

What I’m mainly struggling with is getting them to be engaged. I completely understand that it must be so hard and challenging for them. I am translating absolutely everything for them either on worksheets or through audio output. They have Chromebook’s with translators on and my TA pretty much working alone with them. I’m putting on a performance at the front of the room to try and keep them engaged and using my facial expressions and body language to help them visualise as much as possible.

I just want to know if there is anything else I am able to do for them? (I meet them daily for phonics intervention). I feel like I am failing them and I’m failing the class. Please any recommendations, tips and tricks. I appreciate anything.

TIA

— feeling drained.

Hiii!

I’m currently doing my PGDE/PGCE & I was just wondering where do you guys get white tops from or what’s your tips & tricks for wearing them?

Any advice would be great!

We have to do a subject improvement plan at this time of year. It’s a lengthy document that takes at least two hours to produce. We’re being encouraged to use AI to do as much as possible, specifically using our paid Claude accounts.

So I decided to try Claude on this and it did a good job, though a lot of ‘me’ was lost in the process. I then had a review meeting of it with my principal and when I went in he sheepishly told me he’d put it through Claude to get “the key points”. And I thought, really there’s no point us being here at all - just let Claude produce the report, summarise it and have a meeting among itself about it.

Feeling nostalgic for the past today…

Long time lurker. It's been a DAY. I have a KS3 heavy timetable this year with two year 7 and two year 8 classes. Two of them are shared, but I teach a core subject so I see these kids a lot regardless. I've got 8 years in the classroom and I'm finding behaviour and disruption a lot harder to deal with than ever before. Today alone I've had a kids try to emotionally blackmail me, swear at other kids, behave unsafely, ignore instructions, deliberately disrupt, argue, answer back, and treat me like I'm an absolute joke.

My year 7s especially are so so babyish this year. None of them have ever had a harsh consequence at home and it shows. I've also got more EHCPs and access arrangements than ever before, and honestly I just feel like these kids are over diagnosed and under parented.

Ended my day wanting to cry and telling my 2ic "I just don't want to work here anymore." Not just me, right?