If you are a graduate who is passionate about helping children achieve their potential, our graduate programme could be for you. Our graduate teaching assistant placements at Harris give you an invaluable opportunity to take your first step towards a teaching job, and, more importantly, make a big difference to the education of children across London.
Here are a few things you need to know about starting your teaching career at the Harris Federation as a graduate:
1. The basics: are you qualified?
We look for well qualified graduates to give our children the best possible education. To be considered for our graduate programme, you’ll need to have:
- A bachelor's degree, ideally at 2:1 or higher
- A grade C or higher in GCSE English and mathematics (or standard equivalent)
- A grade C or higher in a science subject (or standard equivalent) if you intend to teach at Primary level
2. It’s all about real-life, school-based experience – and learning from some of our best classroom teachers
We believe you can never really know what it’s like to have a career as a teacher until you have experienced all aspects of school life. Our graduate programme will give you just that – an opportunity to learn on the job, from expert classroom practitioners in a real school environment. You won’t get a better chance to develop your teaching knowledge and skills.
3. It’s a varied role to get really excited about
The teaching assistant role is hugely rewarding one, providing one-to-one or small group support to students with varying abilities across a range of subjects, as well as helping to organising teaching and learning resources. It’s all about using your creative and determined attitude to encourage, motivate and support young people to reach their full potential, working as part of an experienced, collaborative and talented team.
4. We have opportunities covering all school stages
Our school-based Teaching Assistant placements cover both Primary and Secondary phases (Early Years to Key Stage 5). From nurturing young minds at the very beginning of their school experience, to supporting sixth formers in their ambitions for university or the world of work, there are opportunities to make a difference to children and young people of all ages.
5. It’s a great first step on your journey to becoming an outstanding educator
We’ve designed our graduate programme to set the foundations for a successful and rewarding career as a qualified teacher, and we expect that many of our graduate Teaching Assistants will go on to complete their Initial Teacher Education (ITE) through our Harris School Direct programme, which leads to a PGCE, QTS and two Masters modules. This combines the best elements from a range of training routes, leaving you feeling supported, confident and well prepared for teaching.
If you do decide to go on to teacher training, you could earn up to £30,000 for high-priority subjects, and there are two funding routes available: salaried and fee-funded. And Harris School Direct is followed by our highly supportive and unique NQT programme to help you hit the ground running.
6. You will get access to some fantastic benefits and rewards
We want to reward you for all your hard work, and our employment package includes:
- Health Cash Plan
- Interest free loans for season tickets and bicycle purchase
- Loyalty bonuses
- Many opportunities for internal promotions
- First class training and development opportunities
7. Not for you? Why not explore other avenues into teaching?
There are plenty of other ways to get into teaching. For example, we also support the Future Teaching Scholars programme, an exciting new and challenging route into teaching for outstanding students who plan to study a Maths or Physics-related degree at university. We regularly host training and interviews, and we welcome any eligible candidates who are interested.
Find out more about opportunites available at Harris here.