What Nobody Tells You About Teaching

Most teacher training prepares you for the classroom. This book prepares you for everything else — the decisions you'll make before you begin, and the inner battles nobody warns you are coming.

Avoid the five costly mistakes that derail new teachers before they've even started, from choosing the wrong qualification to getting caught out by the things no recruiter mentions

Understand the anxiety, self-doubt, and imposter syndrome that affect almost every teacher, and learn why feeling like a fraud is actually a sign you care deeply about the job

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Choosing the Right Environment

In all walks of life you're going to get conflicting advise with others telling what is best for you. 5 BIG Mistakes addresses some of theses contradictions. Often this is about volunteering in differing scenarios for you to get a feel for which one is right for you. Whilst the word 'teaching' is used quite generously to describe a profession, the specific skills required in in varying environments can be vast and not suit everyone.

For those doing their PGCE, your training will teach you structures of the classroom and give you a solid foundation to how lessons and scheme of works can be organised, but it can't teach you where you will be best placed, only you can decide that from experience.

Special Teachers

I would like to include for you my experience of following a group of actors delivering a theatre in education project trying to teach young people about the dangers of the internet. As part of the school tour I visited a Special School for young children with varying learning needs.

The staff were amazing and the atmosphere unique, but on the morning when all the children came excitedly running in to the school hall to watch the performance, all with varying needs, I stood at the back of the hall with a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes.

The attentiveness of the teachers to the students just blew me away, it was far more focused with what seemed like a much greater need for awareness due to the extreme needs of the range of children. Some children in wheelchairs, others severely hampered by their physical needs, and yet all the staff having an awareness of each and every one.

At the end of the performance on young girl had what I can only describe as an hysterical fit, banging some object against a wall because she didn't want the play to end, I watched on as a teacher talked her through her anxiety.

This is not called a Special School by accident, and whilst many apply this term to the needs of the children, for me it was for the special teachers that are required to give so much to these amazing youngsters. For me, this environment was incredibly upsetting, and I realised emotionally I would struggle with this, the pain of others would bare too much down on my shoulders which is all the more credit to the strength and love that those who teach in this environment deserve.

A Behind the scenes look at Teaching

A survival kit for new teachers. This book prepares you for the decisions you'll make before you begin, and the inner battles nobody warns you are coming.

Costly mistakes that often derail new teachers and NQT's

Understanding anxiety, self-doubt, and imposter syndrome

Discover the inner landscape of teaching

Receiving feedback and surviving observations

Build a teaching identity that is genuinely yours

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Village Schools

The smaller schools may not have the budgets of the larger academies, but this in no way impacts on the quality of their teaching, in fact, I believe in some ways improves it. I had the absolute pleasure of delivering a PSHE Award to one such school, and whilst the walls of the buildings weren't adorned with the spectacular technologies that some of the larger institutions hold, it gave way to a much more innovative style of teaching which was amazing to discover. The wheels of smaller schools can be greased more easily which means original ideas can be adopted much more easily rather than being passed through meetings and meetings for meetings just to get the proposal considered.

So if you are an innovator of teaching styles and methodologies which you want to introduce to your teaching, then there far more likely the opportunity for engagement within a smaller institution than one if its larger rivals.

Whilst there was a feeling of going back in time when I visited this local school, I can only say that it was in the best of ways, with that intimacy and everyone knowing each other which can only be found in smaller institutions. For me it was a school that I would want my children to go to, one that could focus on the individual without the risk of them just becoming a statistic which can be a risk in the larger education models.

Academies

Whilst I very much pinned my badge to favouring a village school for my own offspring, this doesn't mean that the academies aren't a force to be reckoned with. Whilst for me they often lack the homeliness of a smaller education environment, this doesn't mean that they cannot be unique and inclusive.

With a larger budget behind them many would argue they deliver a much more valuable education just by means of a greater buying power, and from a self development perspective, promotional opportunities will be far more accessible.

The Ultimate Survival Kit