Support with your application from an experienced teacher
Our Teacher Training Adviser (TTA) service is a free service that provides you with tailored, one-to-one support from an experienced teacher throughout the application process. You’ll get your own dedicated adviser who knows the teacher training process inside out and is on hand to give you any extra help you need.
Here, former teacher Fabienne talks about her passion for guiding future teachers into the profession and giving them the best chance of securing a place on a teacher training course.
“It’s time to stop work and plan what to have for dinner, when my work phone rings. I can’t ignore it. It has to be important, as are all my calls. I answer and an excited voice shouts in my ear: I made it! Thank you so, so much for all your help, I couldn’t have done it without you.
I must admit feeling a little smug and very, very gratified. Another one of my candidates has been accepted for a place at her preferred university and is on the way to becoming a grower of minds, a purveyor of knowledge, a life guide, a teacher.
I am a Teacher Training Adviser for the Department of Education and relish every call, every email sent and received. My role is the best possible: guiding and advising the wonderful people who want to make a difference to future generations, helping them jump the hurdles of getting their qualifications compared to British ones if necessary, finding appropriate course providers for teacher training, approaching schools to observe lessons and writing a personal statement. Every little step has meaning, every successful application is an achievement. I feel both proud and humble, happy and a little envious. My candidates come from all walks of life but they all have in common a passion for teaching and a desire to change children’s futures. They enrich me with their past experiences and make me a better person through their success. I enjoy receiving news of how their applications are progressing, I love their enthusiasm, I encourage those with doubts, I praise their efforts, I console them when they receive a rejection (very few and far between), I nag when needed and I always smile (it does come through on the phone!).
I envy those future teachers a little bit to be honest, they have a truly valuable career ahead of them. I taught MFL and was also a specialist in SpLD/Dyslexia for 33 years, in the UK and abroad, in British, American and International, state and private schools. I loved every minute (even when I was overwhelmed with work or facing a difficult class). I had to give up for family reasons, but as soon as I was able to I started training people in a business situation, which satisfied to a certain extent my passion for teaching. When I heard about the opportunity to apply to be a Teacher Training Adviser, I jumped in both feet first. What better way to continue my mission to provide the best teaching possible to generations of students than to guide the next generation of teachers? I really have the best job in the world.”
To register for your own Teacher Training Adviser, visit the Get Into Teaching website.
