A road less travelled

Many Warwick students assume that in order to secure a prestigious graduate role you must follow a well-trodden path. The blueprint for success goes something like this; land a Spring week, convert it into a Summer internship, stand out from your intake and, hopefully, you’ll be offered the job that you aspire to. Yet, this is not the only path, nor is it necessarily the best one for all.

Whilst I commend those who successfully navigate this route, experience has shown me that the line between success and failure is razor-thin. The strongest candidates often possess previous professional experience and differentiate themselves by leveraging the knowledge and soft-skills that they have gained from this prior insight. The Teach First Leadership Development Programme (LDP) provides a unique opportunity for graduates to develop these skills, whilst also allowing them to make a direct impact on a social issue of immense national importance. Founded in 2002 by an ex-McKinsey consultant, Brett Wigdortz, the charity’s vision is that no child’s educational success is limited by their socio-economic background. Yet, of the 80,000 pupils eligible for free school meals in the UK each year, half will leave school without a single GCSE at A*-C, let alone five!

The Teach First LDP aims to address this injustice by transforming top graduates into inspiring teachers and leaders. Following a residential training course – the Summer Institute – participants teach in schools in challenging circumstances for a (minimum) period of two years.  During this time, participants also complete their PGCE and gain Qualified Teacher Status.

Teach First LDP aims to address this injustice by transforming top graduates into inspiring teachers and leaders

Consider Warwick MMORSE alumnus and TedX Warwick Co-Founder, Abhishek Shah. After graduating, Abhishek joined Teach First. When asked why, he replied: ‘Teach First had two selling points that won me over: building leadership skills and giving back to the community. It’s a scary thought – to be not just a teacher, but an architect of minds.” Having witnessed the stark reality of educational inequality in his home town of Nairobi, Abhishek empathised with the vision are exclusive to Teach First.  During the school summer holiday, Abhishek worked with the strategy team at Teach First to formulate the ‘Fair Education Impact Goals’. These opportunities – Summer Projects – are exclusive to Teach First participants and ambassadors. Following his completion of the LDP, Abhishek landed a job at Bain & Company. As a Teach First Ambassador, he remains en- gaged with the vision by tutoring a student every Friday via the Access Project, a social enterprise founded by another Ambassador.

For those readers with an interest in finance, consider Adrian Johnston. Having attended a state school himself, Adrian was shocked to learn that ‘only 16% of pupils eligible for free school meals go to university, compared to 96% from independent schools’. Following his graduation from Oxford with a Master’s degree in Mathematics, Adrian joined Teach First. He cites a number of memorable experiences from his three years of teaching, ranging from highlights such as the DofE trip that he organised, to ‘the time they stuck all of the pritt sticks to the ceiling and waited for them to fall down during the lesson…’

At the end of his first year Adrian completed a Summer Project in Management Consulting at Accenture and, after year two, in the Equities division of Goldman Sachs. Adrian, who received offers from both firms and now works as a trader at Goldman Sachs, also remains engaged with the vision by tutoring a student via the Access Project.

In his keynote speech at the Future Leaders Seminar, a joint event run by Teach First and Goldman Sachs, Donough Kilmurray (MD, IMD) underlined the common traits that Teach First and Goldman Sachs employees have in common; a drive to be leaders and a desire to make an impact. If this resonates with you and you empathise with the vision of Teach First, then perhaps you should also consider taking the road less travelled.