These are interesting times if you are setting out on a classroom career.
With teachers leaving the profession in droves before they reach their fifth year, anybody who is anybody in education is searching for ways to keep them in schools.
Training and nurturing staff is an expensive business. The prevalent attitude of those running the show is shifting towards both prevention and cure, so there are rich pickings for new teachers determined to make the most of their careers. Local education authorities, such as Medway and Essex, now talk in terms of teachers’ entitlement to continuing professional development to suit their individual needs and ambitions.
Personalised learning is not just for the kids.
Unlike previous generations, yours can get official recognition through the Teacher Learning Academy for all the hard work you put into sorting out how to get Year 10 silent and focused in 10 minutes.
Having spent months assessing how your pupils best learn, how about you? To discover if you know your activists from your pragmatists, or your auditory from your elbow, you could try our quiz (on page 7).
Meanwhile, the General Teaching Council has set up its Engage network to pair up early-career teachers with partners to support each other (page 8).
Classes can be more easily managed if you use the expertise of other professionals such as behaviour consultants (page 12). As the Government embarks on its extended school and Children Act initiatives, the adults you deal with will soon extend beyond colleagues and parents. How will you cope when dealing with your partners in the local MAST and FP teams?(page 10).
Whatever the next few terms hold, make the most of what help is on offer and maybe in five years’ time you’ll still be there, still proud to teach.