What is the one piece of advice you would give to encourage anyone about to embark on their first teaching role? Something to inspire and instil in them the same spark or passion of teaching that you share – here ASCL members share their views.

Dear newly qualified teacher...

Become a role model

Seek out and learn from those who share your excitement for the role, as well as your respect for students – those successful role models who will help you learn how to be the best you can in your role.

It is natural when starting out to be fearful about asking for advice or support in dealing with daily challenges, whether these are how to motivate a class, or how to gain the support for a whole-school or college initiative. However, with each challenge conquered you will gain confidence in the role and be on your way to becoming a role model yourself.

Dr Anne Murdoch, OBE
General Secretary, Principals’ Professional Council (PPC)

Focus on the long game

Teaching is a long game. Although each year passes at a fast pace with a focus on preparing young people for examinations that open doors to their futures, the best schools and teachers focus on the long game. Developing your teaching practice is a lifetime’s work and not something you should expect to ‘crack’ in your first year. I hope you will find that the joy of teaching is precisely this process of learning how to teach more and more effectively, year after year. While you are doing this, my advice is to be kind to yourself and to relish the highs and ride the lows of the best and most noble of all professions, where no day is like another because no young person is like another. Enjoy.

Rachael Warwick
Executive Headteacher, Ridgeway Education Trust , Oxfordshire (Rachael is ASCL Vice President 2018–19)

Make time for yourself

Teaching is an extremely rewarding and fun job, but it isn’t an easy one. You have to really want to be a teacher; it is definitely a vocation. It doesn’t start at 9am and end at 3.30pm.

You have to be prepared to research what you want to teach, be creative, spend time thinking, “How can I ensure every child is engaged?” and understand that you are a cog in a big machine. You are part of a team, in which all of you want the same but may be coming at it from different angles.

Make time for yourself, too. It is not the end of the world if paperwork is not completed, but if you are bad-tempered, then you are not giving your best to the children. Education is about giving children choices for the future and that is why we become teachers.

Gill Humphriss
Headteacher, Stratford Primary School, Warwickshire

Learn to notice each pupil

The biggest buzz about being a teacher is the lifelong learning that goes with the job. There aren’t many careers so rewarding. We owe it to our pupils to have solid knowledge of our subjects but more importantly taking the time to learn about them.

Learn to notice your pupils. It’ll raise their self-esteem and strengthen their engagement. Never be the teacher who says, “But I have 28 other pupils to think about,” or, “I don’t know her very well, I only have that class once a week.”

Make sure you say, “I know each of my learners well and the more I know, the better I can help them navigate their own barriers to accessing knowledge and deepen their learning.” If I had my first year over again, I would develop my ‘noticing’ muscle.

Margaret Mulholland
Director of Development and Research, Swiss Cottage School London, (Margaret is the ASCL Council representative for special educational needs and disability (SEND))

"The biggest buzz about being a teacher is the lifelong learning that goes with the job."

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