Teach First

Teach First. Now there’s an organisation that really is making a difference.

It was founded in 2002, and it takes graduates from top universities and turns them into teachers and/or leaders. Here’s the deal. Top graduates are trained so they teach for two years in the toughest and most educationally disadvantaged secondary schools in London, the North West and the Midlands.

After two years they either stay on as teachers, or join one of the sponsoring companies as an employee. The hundred or so supporting companies – Cadbury Schweppes, HSBC, McKinsey’s, Microsoft etc – invest in the charity for two reasons. Reason one is social conscience – help the community by helping to put quality teachers in the schools where they are needed.

Reason two is that the Teach First graduates who after the two years decide not to make a permanent career in teaching go to work for them. And they are a very special graduate intake, because after two years of teaching tough kids in tough secondary schools their communication skills, and their planning, organisational and creative skill, are way beyond anyone who hasn’t been through the experience.

Indeed, Teach First turns them into both elite teachers and elite human beings. Teaching, business, industry and society all benefit.

Teach first recently got a fantasically positive Ofsted Report. There have been 1000 plus participants in the scheme since it started, and this year two of the graduates joining the scheme were beneficiaries themselves of it. Yes they attended two of those educationally deprived inner city schools.