On the face of it, you’d never expect to find James Townsend teaching a history class in London’s East End. Graduating in 2003 from Oxford University at the top of his class, James had the pick of blue-chip companies recruiting on campus. Instead, he chose to teach 11- to 16-year-olds at the Morpeth School in Bethnal Green, one of London’s most disadvantaged schools where almost 70 per cent of the pupils qualify for free school meals.
"If it wasn't for Teach First I wouldn't have considered teaching at all"Two years on, James has completed his teaching internship and is pursuing a career in management consulting. But he left his mark at Morpeth: GCSE results in his department improved 20 per cent (for pupils getting A*-C grades). The school now has a rugby club, a jazz band, and a faculty learning workgroup that looks at ways of improving lessons.
“It wasn’t down to me, really,” says Townsend modestly. “These were such a great group of pupils. They have so much energy—it was amazing to work with them.”
Townsend was part of the Teach First programme, a business-led initiative that puts high-flying graduates into hard-pressed schools for a two-year stint with the aim of changing young people’s lives.
Launched in 2002, Teach First is loosely modelled on the US-based programme Teach For America. Like TFA, Teach First recruits top graduates by offering them a challenge: intensive training, full teacher certification, and the chance to help turn around a failing school—all within two years.
The response on British campuses has been overwhelming. Each year, an average 1,300 graduates have applied for 200 positions. The participants are all from the top three per cent of their classes with degrees in finance, engineering, maths and philosophy.
Any business would kill to recruit such a talented group. How does Teach First do it? Brett Wigdortz, CEO of Teach First, says the programme taps into something that students find very attractive and cannot find elsewhere. “Social responsibility is important to today’s graduates; they want to make a difference. And they want to be given real leadership opportunities to prove themselves,” he says.
The fact that Teach First is a stepping-stone to another career, rather than a destination in itself, is also attractive to graduates looking to keep their options open. “When we go on campus, we are the only recruiter that promises to make an impact in two years,” says Wigdortz. “That’s a very powerful message for young people.”
The programme is also sending a message to the corporate world. Teach First graduates demonstrate skills that often take years to learn on the job, says Jo Owen, a former partner at business consultancy Accenture and now director of strategy for Teach First. “Early in their business careers most graduates are learning technical skills: auditing, dealing, programming. These are not skills that are needed to succeed in the long term. Future leaders learn early on the tough lessons of managing people, leadership, initiative and entrepreneurialism. The Teach First programme helps graduates gain these lifetime skills,” says Owen.
“One of the best skills you learn as a teacher is how to fail,” adds Wigdortz. “These graduates are a high-achieving lot—always at the top of their class. Faced with a room full of challenging pupils who are not used to having high expectations of themselves—teachers will have ups and downs along the way. It is a lesson in resiliency and how to cope under pressure.”
In today’s world of grade inflation, employers say experiences like Teach First help them look beyond scores to gain insight into a candidate’s personality and leadership qualities. “Teach First graduates have a number of skills that other graduates may not have developed yet,” says Sarah Shillingford, graduate recruitment partner at Deloitte, the consultancy which has recruited several former Teach First teachers. “They already have strong communication skills. They are excellent at working in teams and they are ready to take initiatives.”
The government provides funding for Teach First’s intensive teacher training programme, but the rest comes from more than 100 sponsors. Among the blue-chip partners are HSBC, Credit Suisse First Boston, Deloitte, McKinsey and Citigroup and graduates are each assigned a senior executive from these firms who, as mentors, provide career advice throughout the two years.
Programmes like Teach First may seem unconventional, but they are getting results in inner-city areas where traditional methods are failing. In the schools where Teach First operates, more than 30 per cent of secondary pupils are poor enough to qualify for free school meals, English is not often their first language, and student turnover is high. Such schools have trouble attracting talented staff.
A fast-track teacher qualification, a key attraction of the Teach First internship, is now being adopted by the government to help recruit new graduates to under-resourced subjects like maths and sciences.
Some teacher groups are concerned that Teach First’s fast-track certification does not sufficiently prepare graduates to teach. A typical teaching course takes 12 months whereas Teach First teachers get just six weeks of preparation.
But proponents think otherwise. They point to evidence that standard teaching methods do not produce better results. One report by Mathematica, a US-based policy group, found that students taught by participants in the Teach For America (TFA) programme, who receive minimal training before entering the classroom, produced better maths results than students taught by fully-certified teachers.
In summer 2005, the first class of Teach First recruits completed their two-year teaching internship and they are all now fully certified teachers. While the majority have embarked on the next stage in their careers, an astonishing 45 per cent have decided to stay on. “The graduates get into the classroom and soon realise they are making a difference to children’s lives. It changes their priorities,” says David Milar, head of faculty and sports at Hayling Manor High School in Enfield, which has participated in the Teach First programme for the past three years.
Steve Adcock, 24, elected to continue on as a teacher after his internship finished last June and quickly became the head of the history department at Ashburton School in Croydon. “I saw it as a new challenge—a chance to look after four other teachers and to work closely with the senior management of the school,” he says. This month, Adcock moves to his next challenge as the assistant head of Burlington Danes School in west London. “If it wasn’t for Teach First I wouldn’t have considered teaching at all,” he admits.
Even those that have moved on are still very committed to the establishments they left behind. James Townsend, the Morpeth School teacher, is developing an alumni programme for Teach First graduates entering the business world. Based on the Territorial Army, the ‘Territorial Teachers’ scheme raises awareness among employers who hire former Teach First teachers and keeps them involved with their schools. Employers permit their Teach First graduates to take off five working days annually for a special project at the schools where they taught.
One graduate, now working at Deloitte is organising a mock consulting project with his former students, while another has arranged for a herd of sheep to live on the school’s grounds so students can experience a working farm environment.
Now in its fourth year, Teach First has ambitious plans for the future. Based on the progress in London, the government has allocated fresh funding to expand Teach First to new cities. A Manchester programme is now in place, with plans for four further rollouts.
But it is the programme’s long-term partnerships that Wigdortz finds most exciting. “I don’t think people realise the power of the network we’re building. In a few years, we’ll have thousands of Teach First ambassadors in the business world supporting each other and giving back to the schools where they taught. We’ll see real systemic changes in the way businesses work with education, as well as how they recruit their next leaders.”
The business of education
City academies, funded in part by the private sector, are another business-led initiative at the centre of the government’s plans to improve inner-city schools. Around 200 of them are slated to replace London’s worst secondary schools. These programmes draw on sponsorship from business, faith and voluntary groups.
It’s early days, but the results of such initiatives are encouraging. Research by Ofsted, the regulator, found the academy programme is improving grades. Last year, academy pupils with five good GCSEs increased 8.0 per cent, against 2.6 per cent nationally.
But there are longer-lasting business benefits as well. Traditionally, schools have viewed themselves as not-for-profit operations with financial needs usually outstripping their budgets. Programmes like the city academies and Teach First encourage a more business-like approach.
In the case of Teach First, the scheme has teamed up with the Tanaka School of Business at Imperial College London to offer special training in leadership and managerial skills. In theory, participants can then bring in more efficient management processes and cut out unnecessary expenses.
Privately sponsored programmes have their critics. Some academies have come under fire for their associations with religious groups and public figures, and there is the issue of how much influence such groups—including sponsor firms—have on what is taught and how.
But supporters say Teach First and city academies are the way forward if the government wants to improve education. They provide working models of how business and education can partner up for mutual gains.
