Fancy a career in teaching? The Brilliant Club can help

Would a career in teaching suit you?

The Brilliant Club works to widen access to selective universities for state school pupils and provides paid experience to current PhD students. If you want to share your PhD research in a course of tutorials with school pupils, or to test out the experience of working in schools, The Brilliant Club provides opportunities for both. Two LSE PhD students report on their experience here:

Dvora Liberman, currently LSE PhD Law, reflects on the Brilliant Club Programme:

Opening up a new kind of conversation

The Brilliant Club gave me a unique opportunity to create and deliver a course to young people (15-18 year olds) based on my PhD research. Grounded in oral history, my PhD project is a joint partnership between The Legal Biography Project at the LSE and National Life Stories at the British Library. The course I devised for the Brilliant Club ‘Making History: Conducting and Interpreting Life History Interviews’ introduced students to the theory and practice of oral history and aimed to bring history to life in an accessible and engaging way, as well as to foster critical thinking, listening and speaking skills, self-awareness and empathy. At the heart of oral history is the interview encounter between the interviewer and narrator, and the course guided students to conduct ethical and effective oral history interviews, and then to reflect on and interpret these narrative accounts.

I was drawn to work with the Brilliant Club because of its mission to encourage students from non-selective state schools to aspire to study at highly-selective universities. And as a qualified and experienced teacher I was able to continue developing my teaching practice throughout my PhD. Yet the Brilliant Club programme is a wonderful chance for PhD students who are not teachers to gain teaching experience and consider whether it might be a potential career path they would like to pursue. Class sizes were small (6-8 students), and it was a joy to facilitate lively and stimulating discussions with highly motivated and enthusiastic young people who were keen to share their fresh and novel ideas.

The most rewarding aspect for me as a Brilliant Club tutor was the feedback I received from students who said that the course gave them an appreciation of the value of telling and sharing life stories, and approaching the study of history through multiple and diverse perspectives. And most especially, the interviews that students conducted with their mothers, teachers and siblings enabled them to perceive their ‘interviewees’ in new ways and enriched and deepened their relationships and everyday conversations.

Fernando Morett, PhD in Philosophy LSE (2014) says:

I have been a philosophy tutor for The Brilliant Club since 2014. I have been amazed with the intellectual skills and abilities school children have at understanding, debating and writing high quality essays on topics usually taught to undergraduates. They are brilliant young thinkers! Children with good grades are selected for these courses and some of them receive free schools meals, which provides added value to their outstanding performance. As a tutor you will teach the products of your own research, with your pupils having the possibility of publishing their essays. You will enjoy teaching amazing children and get some further income and teaching experience. This in itself is fulfilling and highly valuable, and it can have some curricular value for those pursuing an academic career within a university. A maximum benefit can be obtained for those considering the possibility of making a career as school teachers, as you will be effectively using your research skills, other academic skills as well as your products of your research if you join the programme specially designed for PhDs called ‘Researchers In Schools’ (which is led by The Brilliant Club in partnership with the Department of Education and other organisations). Good luck with your career!

Interested in becoming a teacher now?

LSE Careers information on teaching is comprehensive, and a good starting point. Vacancies are published on CareerHub for posts in Academy Schools or with Teach First. Training with a PGCE route is also open to you. All the ways in are covered by the Get into Teaching website.

Maths and science teachers much in demand

Recruiting high quality maths and science teachers is a top priority for the National College for Teaching and Leadership (NCTL) for the remainder of the current recruitment cycle. They want to increase the number starting with a wide range of providers in September 2016, and are offering a range of bursaries and scholarships worth up to £30,000 tax free to trainees in 2016/17. More information about funding and about subject knowledge enhancement courses can be found through Get into Teaching.

Bursaries and Scholarships