In September 2014, I began my teacher training. By November, I was ready to call it quits.

I was exhausted from the daily paperwork, reflections, observations, being forced into taking lessons and interventions before I was ready. I was told to suck it up - this was the life of a teacher, after all. But I needed support, guidance and nurturing.

I was continually compared with my peers: “Well, **** is able to plan and lead this lesson so why can’t you?”

I was spoken about in secret conversations that didn’t go unheard: “She is rubbish - she will never make it to the end of the year.”

My confidence quickly evaporated. I battled through the placement and was branded a “cause for concern”.

Then the next placement was the worst time of my life.

Worried sick

On the first day, I spoke to a teaching assistant and told her who my tutor was. She said: “Oh…I’m sure you’ll be fine.” That was the first warning sign. Next, a fellow student was told she had to use her maiden name, not her married surname, as it was the same as the tutor’s. That was the second sign.  

My first observation was graded “good”, and it gave me the boost I needed. But things got worse.

We were referred to as “the students”; we weren’t allowed in staff meetings; we weren’t spoken to in the staff room; weren’t included in the tea round when every other teacher was.

We weren’t provided with a space for our planning, preparation and assessment and were expected to do it in the back of a classroom without any support.

I thought I was doing exactly what my tutor told me: I put a new spin on lessons, tried to make them engaging, fun. Yet, I was continually being graded as “requires improvement”.

I began being sick every morning and crying for the duration of the journey to school. I was taking a combination of Kalms, Pro Plus, ibuprofen and paracetamol for my daily migraines. I would spend the night with little sleep until the alarm would go off at 6am, when the awful day would start again.

When I tried to talk to my tutors, I was told this was teaching, and that if I couldn’t cope, it was the wrong career for me.

A close family relative passed away and I became really ill - coughing up blood, sickness and migraines. I was floored for four days. The day I returned to placement was a Friday; I had been sick and hysterically crying since 5:30am, looking for any excuse not to go back, but I persevered.

I burst into tears as I stepped through the door, totally broken and overwhelmed, sat and had a chat in the acting headteacher’s office where it was agreed I would have a day to take it easy and would come back with a fresh head on the Monday.

As I walked out of the office, I bumped into my tutor. She said that I’ had an “extended period of absence” and had reported my lack of dedication to the course manager. I was told to expect a phone call and that I’d need to fulfil two assessed formal observations that day. Surprise, surprise, they were both graded as “requires improvement”.

Weight lifted

In our last week, a fellow student was called in by our school-centred initial teacher training manager at 8.30am and was told to go to the head’s office for an urgent meeting.

The staff had been keeping folders on both of us about anything they felt was unprofessional. The student called me, crying down the phone, saying that they’d threatened to remove her from the course.

I decided that I needed to speak up to protect not only her, but also myself, and anyone else who may have been subjected to working within that school.

I arranged a meeting with my postgraduate certificate in education (PGCE) manager and told her everything. She understood and apologised, and has since not sent a single student there.

My final placement was a much better experience, but by this point I had already emotionally checked out.

When the final day of placement came and I received an email confirming that I’d gained my PGCE, I was elated. It felt like the biggest weight had been lifted.

We had a final reflection section with all of the other students on the course; 50 of us sat in a circle while a programme tutor sat, shocked, listening to the horror stories most of us had endured, yet had hidden from each other.

This was the most cathartic experience; after eight months, I felt like I wasn’t alone, it wasn’t just me.

We were given a form on which to feed back on our experience. There was a question about where we would see ourselves in our career in five years’ time.

What did I put? That I wanted to become a PGCE tutor so I could ensure that as few trainees as possible had to endure what I went through.

The writer is a former teacher in the UK