The best way to decide whether or not teaching might be the right career for you is to get some classroom experience. Oxfordshire Teacher Training operates a School Experience Programme across the county in partnership schools, to offer interested applicants a chance to get into state schools and see what life in the classroom is really like. We run this programme because we want to make getting experience in schools as easy as possible. If you would like us to, we’ll guide you on every step of the journey from these early observation experiences, through preparing you for interview, onto a training course and throughout your career.
Placements are typically one or two days long with the majority of the time being spent in the classroom in lessons. On the first day, there will be some time to think about how to observe lessons effectively as well as some information on the different training routes. After that you will be able to watch a range of subject lessons taught to different age groups, observe tutor time (part of the pastoral programme) and talk to teachers about their experiences of day-to-day life in school. As well as giving you invaluable insight into whether or not teaching might be right for you these placements also provide you with relevant school experience to support an application for teacher training.
Please note that as we are approaching the end of the academic year there are very limited school experience visits available, particularly for secondary schools. We will upadte the form and add more dates in September for the academic year ahead.