Pleased to Meet You: Get into Teaching London & South East

It was a pleasure to meet so many apiriing teachers at the final Get Into Teaching event for London and the South East at the London Hilton Metropole Hotel on 21 March.

Navigating the path into teaching is never easy and there were a good number perplexed by the complexities of applying for teacher training.

For those hoping to apply for teacher training, Astra's top advice would be:

• Choose a local provider
  They'll have excellent links with schools in your area, often built up over many years. Commuting is a fact of life but going local can cut this to more manageable times. Local provision means it's much easier to support you in school too.
   
• Make sure you aren't expected to find your own placements
  Astra arranges both your main and contrasting placement schools. Your main placement is always arranged at interview stage, long before the course starts.
   
• Select a provider that offers both PGCE and QTS
  A PGCE suits the overwhelming majority of applicants. It's both academic and practical and it will help you think about your teaching, as well as develop your classroom practice. But for a minority of trainees, QTS can be a better route. 
   
• Go in person
  Astra's training is in person and taught locally in the Astra patch. Almost every trainer is a practising teacher in a partnership school, bringing at the chalkface expertise. They're passionate about what they teach and helping develop the next generation of teachers. As a trainee, you also need a community of other teachers to train with and that's easier in person.
   
• Contact the provider and talk with them
  Good providers are always happy to talk! Every application to teacher training is different, so get in touch and explain what you're looking for or need to know more about.

If you gave us your contact details, we'll be in touch with you early next week.

In the meantime, do:

• Click here for info on the Astra vision for teacher training.
• Find out more about primary here and secondary here
• Apply here

And everyone is welcome to contact us for more information.