The First Term As An ITT - By Ishaaq Nabeel Iqbal 

My first term and placement is complete. It flew by, and I learnt an awful lot from my mentors. They were extremely kind and offered invaluable advice, which helped me improve my teaching over the term. It has built up my confidence, and I am no longer nervous having a whole classroom of people staring at me, which means I can focus more on students’ progress rather than my own. 
 
These 3 months have been an adventure. From meeting new colleagues who made me feel very welcome to interacting with students whenever I could who, over time, would want to come and talk to me in their own free time. In essence, I had no problem getting out of bed and going to work every day because I loved it. And that’s exactly what you want in a job. You don’t want a job that you don’t enjoy. 
 
The biggest challenge I encountered was dealing with behaviour, but over time, as a teacher, it’s my job to form that relationship with every student, and eventually, even the most challenging students became respectful and enjoyed being in my lesson. Everybody needs that opportunity to start afresh and wipe the slate clean. 
 
The best lessons I found were the lessons I made myself. So I created a revision lesson for my classes as they had assessments coming up and split the class up into 2 teams. Throughout the 60-minute lesson, every student was engaged and involved, and at the end of the lesson, every single student said that they loved the lesson and wanted to do it next lesson. Even though they were doing work, they loved it and wanted to do more. And as a teacher, I felt satisfied I had done my job because every student was leaving the classroom smiling, not because the lesson had ended and they were going home, but because they enjoyed the lesson. 
 
A big reason people want to become teachers is because it is a rewarding career. But you don’t realise how rewarding it really is until you do it yourself. I didn’t realise how many lives I touched until the last lesson, where I told students that I would be leaving. All of my students were extremely grateful. They didn’t want me to leave, and the number of thank yous I received was overwhelming. So for the people who are considering a career as a secondary Maths teacher, I would definitely say go for it. It is a job where once you get over the hurdles at the start, isn’t seen as a job anymore and rather doing something you love. 

By Ishaaq Nabeel Iqbal 

------

Keep up-to-date with the latest Maths Scholarships news:

Find us on X (Twitter), Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and Facebook.

Join our mailing list or get in touch Here.