Paid Internships for Teachers with Blackdown Education Partnership and South West Teacher Training

Aims of the Internship

The aims of this internship programme are to provide potential future teachers with the opportunity to:

• Gain an insight into teaching as a profession
• Develop an understanding of effective classroom practice
• Share their passion for their subject with students
• Have a positive impact on students’ learning
• Be supported in the process of applying for teacher training
• Receive additional support in their early teaching career

By doing so we aim to have a positive impact on the recruitment and retention of teachers of shortage subjects in the South West.

Programme Overview

Internships will take place in the summer term and will last three weeks.

The activities that take place will offer interns the chance to gain a deep experience of teaching, and may include:

• structured training, shadowing and lesson observation, followed by a chance to jointly plan and deliver lessons;
• one-to-one mentors who are good or outstanding classroom teachers in their specialism;

and

• opportunities to network with qualified subject specialists
• take part in professional development workshops for teachers
• completion of a mini-research project

Placement Schools will provide:

• A School Based Mentor who will take responsibility for supervising the intern whilst on placement
• A structured induction to the school
• A timetable which has between 15 -18 hours of classroom based experience
• A range of experiences whilst on placement

Exeter Maths School / Blackdown Education Partnership / South West Teacher Training will provide:

• Overview training
• A mentor
• Quality assurance process
• Enrichment activities

Payments

Interns must commit to full attendance to be able to take part in the internship.

A payment of £1,275 will be made at the conclusion of the internship if there has been full attendance.  A pro-rata reduction will be made for days missed.

We have been providing STEM internships for students considering a career in teaching since 2018 (with a gap in 2020 due to the Covid 19 pandemic).

100% of interns, in all the years we have run the programme, agreed that they would recommend this internship to others who are considering teaching as a career.

In 2024, 80% of interns were more likely to go into teaching as a result of their experience

A few internship highlights

Visiting and working in multiple schools

Teaching the majority of a lesson

Experiencing different teachers and their approaches

Jumping into a whole new environment

Supportive teachers

Routes into teaching was very informative

Working with students 1-2-1

Great insight into the teaching profession

Seeing differentiation in bottom set classes

Teaching episodes where it has made a difference

Key learning for interns

Building confidence in public speaking

What it takes to be a successful teacher

How difficult and rewarding the job can be

How to get into teaching

Learning the thought processes of teaching children

The different cultures of schools

The importance of being adaptable

Communicating effectively with young people

Differentiating teaching for different groups of students

Teaching is much more than subject knowledge

Quotes from our interns

“Great experience! Thank you so much.”

“The internship as a whole has really built my confidence.  Great team spirit with other interns. Thank you!”

“Thanks so much for this opportunity. Funding also great as I could take time off work.”

“Each part of this internship has been very valuable in thinking through teaching. Thank you!”

“The experience has been amazing and it has been so informative.  I cannot thank you guys enough for this opportunity.”

“This was a really valuable experience”