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Alison’s career journey

Alison discovered her passion for teaching while leading drama classes during her time working at a casting agency, following the completion of her film and media studies degree. To gain classroom experience, she worked as a teaching assistant before achieving qualified teacher status (QTS) through a graduate teaching programme. Her first teaching position was at a primary school on the outskirts of Manchester.

Moving to the United Arab Emirates in 2011, Alison describes her 10 years working as a teacher and consultant in international schools as a “wonderful life experience”. In Dubai, she became a head of year, as well as working on curriculum innovation in a large GEMS Education school – while also completing her master’s degree (MA) in education remotely with Edge Hill University in the UK.

Alison draws on these experiences “every single day” in the work she does to shape the iPGCE at Tes: “I always think back to my own online teacher development training in terms of what helped me or others I knew on the course – and we plan that in.”

Teaching ethos

“I've always been interested in professional development and creating an environment where teachers are challenged and inspired. We look to instil a love of learning in the children we teach – so it helps if we as teachers are also lifelong learners.”

Alison lives and breathes this ethos herself. As well as her MA in education, she has completed a National Professional Qualification for Leading Teacher Development (NPQLTD).

She was also recently awarded the Fellowship of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA) award, for individuals who demonstrate excellence in teaching and learning within higher education.

“Continuing to develop and invest in yourself as a teacher gives you confidence – and opportunities to progress in your career as well.”

Aims of the iPGCE programme

Alison is passionate about empowering learners, whatever their background, with a robust knowledge base to become confident, effective practitioners:

“The aim is that wherever you’ve come from in the world, you can arrive in a new country and have the confidence and knowledge to teach. You can maintain that high standard wherever you choose to be a teacher. And this impacts your colleagues, your school and the children because there's that high-quality learning and experience for everybody.”

Because the iPGCE is delivered at the same academic level as a master's degree, many learners find it has a positive impact not only on their careers – but on their self-esteem and confidence as well:

“We see that it really boosts learners’ confidence in the classroom and professionally, and many use the iPGCE course as a platform to jump off to go into middle leadership, move schools or do more learning.”

Why learners love the Tes iPGCE

Alison explains that it’s the fact that the Tes iPGCE is 100 per cent online that makes it appealing and accessible for so many international learners. And it’s the theoretical understanding that you get on the iPGCE that learners say they find especially empowering.

“Our course equips you with the tools to be a reflective practitioner, which gives you that understanding of pedagogy and the reasons why you do what you do in the classroom. That theoretical foundation then gives you that confidence to try different things as a teacher.”

In addition, learners feel assured that the Tes iPGCE course is not just internationally recognised – but respected.

“We’ve also got that regulation of the academic side – everything is moderated and quality assured to make sure it meets the requirements of our partner university, the University of East London.”

What support is available for learners on the iPGCE programme?

Everyone on the course has an expert pathway tutor and a school mentor. Learners can be either employed or volunteering in a school, with a minimum requirement of only 4 hours a week of in-school teaching.

“Our pathway tutors are located all around the world. We try to pair learners with tutors with commonalities in terms of location and classroom expertise. We stagger the times of our group sessions every two to three weeks across the working day as well, so we're catching people in different locations.

“My favourite bit is being able to bring all of those teachers together in one room, a virtual room, to have conversations and hear them say ‘Oh, yeah, I'm noticing that as well,’ even if their schools are 10,000 miles away. It's nice for them to share their experience and be the expert in their context.”

Impact in the classroom

Teachers learn the theory and practical strategies in the iPGCE course lectures, and these then feed into and prepare them for the two self-selected master’s level assignments.

“As the iPGCE is postgraduate, the learners direct their learning through action research. They choose an element of their practice they want to improve upon. So every assignment I read is different because every learner has different priorities in school or needs in their class. But you can see the impact.

“When I read the assignments after the learners have undertaken their action research in the classroom, you see how it's improving and enriching their lives and how they've then gone on to share it with colleagues. That makes me really proud to think that they're not just writing an assignment for the sake of it – they're doing it to improve their school and the children's learning.”

Alison’s advice for a learner on the iPGCE programme

Alison explains that the course can be a great opportunity for teachers to pause, reflect and make a real difference in their school.

“As teachers, we can get caught up in the day to day – in big international schools, there can be a number of additional demands and responsibilities to juggle alongside teaching.

“Our iPGCE is an excellent opportunity to embrace what matters to you, what you feel are priorities to your development as a teacher, and what you want to research to improve your teaching but also to enrich the lives of your pupils as well.

“It's also a chance to connect with teachers from all over the world. It might give you some inspiration about where you're going to move to next...”

The future of the iPGCE programme

Starting with one cohort of 10 learners in 2018, there are now three cohorts and around 380 learners on the course – across 63 different countries. Alison describes how the most recent September learner cohort in Hong Kong grew by 50 per cent from the previous September.

“I’d love to continue to expand our global reach – not quite world domination, but it's really nice to see new countries popping up all the time.

“We’ve seen that word of mouth is something that’s really strong on the iPGCE, and that global reach of international teachers moving from one country to another and spreading positive feedback.”

Ultimately, Alison aims to foster high-quality teaching across the globe.

“I’m looking forward to seeing how our iPGCE continues to grow and positively impact teachers from all different backgrounds.

“We’ve seen that one person doing the course can have that butterfly effect in their school: doing some research and trying to improve something in their classroom then leads the teacher next door to do the same. We hope it can have that impact outside of the walls of the iPGCE as well.”

Loved hearing from Alison? Find out more about the iPGCE course and meet the rest of our inspiring programme leaders in our Spotlight series collection.