“We’ve got all these people leaving the forces. They’re highly skilled, highly credible and they’ve got experience in leadership and mentoring,” says Alex Knowles. 

Inspirational? Tick. Knowledgeable? Tick. Experience in teaching? Tick. Ideal candidates for the world of further education, then?

Yes, says Knowles - and he should know. After 15 years in the Royal Air Force as a mechanical technician supervisor, he is now a full-time FE lecturer - the first armed services leaver to gain a PGCE through the Education and Training Foundation (ETF) Further Forces programmes.

Knowles teaches engineering at Grantham College, and is also the programme manager for apprenticeships at the college. 

Background:  Further Forces: ex-soldiers targeted to retrain as FE teachers

Opinion:  ‘From the forces to FE: how I ended up in teaching’

Quick read: First ex-soldiers set to start training as FE teachers

Knowles’ first experience of FE was in the RAF. Growing up in Nottingham, he left school with five A-Cs at GCSE, but admits he was disengaged. He started A levels, but soon dropped out. 

He applied for the RAF with a group of his friends, and was one of two who was accepted. His entry tests showed that he had potential in engineering - a route that Knowles had never even considered. 

Next came a level 3 apprenticeship in engineering, followed by an HNC, an HND and then a bachelor’s degree in engineering from Staffordshire University. It’s an impressive collection of qualifications for someone who didn’t think of himself as particularly academic. 

“It’s more about the application. Given a specific problem, I can solve it, but in essays I don’t do well. I’m more in black and white and not the grey around it. I didn’t really apply myself at a younger age,” he says.

A desire to teach

His experience of an apprenticeship sparked an interest in teaching. “I was really mentored through it, and there was so much support. It was just such a positive experience of education. It made me think, ‘Actually, I can do this,’ and encouraged me to go on further, the HND and the bachelor’s. It gave me confidence in myself,” Knowles explains. 

“The desire to teach came through that. There were people above me who were aspirational characters, they encouraged me. It’s that thing about passing on your experiences to others and helping them out.” 

Originally, he considered teaching design and technology in a secondary school. But after visiting a careers fair and speaking to Grantham College - which would then go on to be his first employer - he had a change of heart, and started to contemplate teaching in FE. 

“I guess it’s a bit of an unknown, FE. People don’t realise you can go into it without a PGCE and do training on the job. The benefits are that you get a salary,” he says.

“In hindsight, I’m so glad I went to post-16 education, because it’s more a vehicle to help students into actual jobs, instead of giving them just a bottom scaffolding of engineering.” 

Further Forces

Another chance discovery made everything fall into place. When scrolling through the Get Into Teaching website, he found the Education Training Foundation’s (ETF) Further Forces FE recruitment programme. The programme - which is partly funded by the Gatsby Foundation - supports service leavers to retrain to teach technical subjects, including science, engineering and technology.

They are allocated a specialist mentor, and their training programme is fully funded. In a landscape in which skilled, specialist FE teachers are hard to come by, it’s a scheme that’s been welcomed across the sector. 

Knowles applied for it and was successful. With help from the ETF - and as well as learning on the job at Grantham College - Knowles attended Nottingham Trent University one day a week to get a PGCE. He’s the first to graduate from the scheme with one. And it’s all happened over just one year. 

“It was quite surprising to start the job and instantly be put on to teacher training. I thought there would be a waiting list. It was a bit of a workload to manage, getting into a new job and doing some new training alongside that. I had no understanding of the different ways there are to get into training for FE,” he says. 

But what surprised him most of all was how supportive his students were. He says that throughout his training, they gave him guidance and encouragement and were really helpful. And they lapped up his stories about what happens when you’re out on deployment. However, he admits that it hasn’t all been plain sailing.

“In teaching, you constantly have to chase things. You don’t ask for something to be done, and straight away it is - you have to follow up.” Knowles laughs: “In the RAF, you ask something to do something and it’s done, no matter what.” 

Speak out, reach out

It’s a completely different way of working - and requires a completely new mindset. 

Knowles says he would recommend that other members of the armed forces consider teaching once they leave - but emphasises the importance of asking for support. 

“You need to speak out and reach out to other people - get advice and guidance from your new work colleagues, and people at university.  It is a large transition, I didn’t realise how much it affected me in terms of changing jobs and a whole new career,” he says.

“It’s a very different workplace, in terms of what’s expected of you and what you expect from other people. You have to change what you think about yourself, how you feel about things. It is very different, and you can’t go in with the same mentality.”