Classroom Updates

Friday brings this section of Teach First Week 2011 to a close, but what a note to end on! On Friday we welcomed five MPs from up and down the country into Teach First classrooms to teach subjects ranging from maths to persuasive writing. Our MPs were joined by Sainsbury's CEO Justin King in the Midlands, Business Woman and BBC's The Apprentice finalist Claire Young in Yorkshire, and Erwin Friederich from Teach First supporter Shell in London.

Erwin spent almost a day at Stockley Academy in Hillingdon where he delivered a lesson for Teach First Week and also gave a talk to a group of teachers at the academy on managing stress and developing key competencies. After lunch Erwin engaged with 6th form business students where he talked about life as a successful businessman.

In his lesson, Erwin focused on the energy and fuel industry, providing the class with a better understanding of the demands on energy and how this will shape the world in which they will live. He made sure the class was suitably motivated by running a small group work based competition with some great shell prizes for the winners!

Claire Young taught a lesson first thing at Cathedral School in Wakefield. Claire spoke to the pupils about her experiences as a finalist in BBC's The Apprentice and the work she does now as a social entrepreneur, to help the pupils think about what they might want to do in future and raise their aspirations.

As Claire's lesson was going on in Wakefield, Gavin Barwell MP was entering Addington School in Croydon for his Teach First Week experience. Gavin, alongside participant William Murrills, taught a lesson to year 8 on how to find the unknown side of a right angled triangle using pythagorus theorem. He helped to facilitate both individual and group work and led a 'who wants to be a millionaire' style pythagorus theorem challenge! At the end, Gavin answered questions from the class on his work in parliament and the constituency. One pupil praised the lesson saying “I never got this before, but I do now.”

Just before lunch at Aylesford School - Sports College, Tracey Crouch MP for Chatham and Aylesford taught an engaging lesson on the roles and responsibilities of an MP. She started the lesson by asking pupils to illustrate what they thought a typical MP looks like. Following numerous drawings of suits and top hats, Tracey asked the class to imagine they were an MP and write down what the job involves - pupils were surprised to learn that opening supermarkets is in the job description! Next the class wrote down what they thought an MP’s diary looks like and compared it with her actual diary. The lesson ended with a Q&A session - pupils asked Tracey questions about her job including: “how much does an MP earn?”, “what happens if you disagree with something your party says?”, and “do you have to go to university to become an MP?”. To wrap-up, Tracey asked the class how many of them would like to become MPs and was greeted with a healthy show of hands.

Sainsbury's CEO Justin King taught a Year 7 class at St Alban's Academy in Birmingham, where he stressed the importance of knowing your numbers, focusing on the marketing, design and manufacturing of the Sainsbury's Red Nose for Comic Relief. He began the lesson with a brief introduction about himself, his role at Sainsburys and his own education which began at a state school in Solihull. He asked the pupils what they knew about Sainsbury's and his role as CEO and provided an overview of the relationship between Sainsbury's and Red Nose Day.  Encouraging the pupils to use their creativity to design their own Red Nose and strapline, Justin explained the costs associated with with the design and production of the red nose encouraging the children to 'know their numbers' whilst also explaining the donation Sainsbury's makes to charity by selling the noses in their stores across the country.

Schedule for Friday 11 March

	Gavin Barwell MP Maths Hosted by Teach First participant William Murrills
	Justin King CEO, Sainsbury's plc Year 7 ICT Hosted by Teach First participant Kiran Vithal
	Heidi Alexander MP Year 8 English Hosted by Teach First participant Tom Stock
	Tracey Crouch MP Year 8 / 9 Citizenship Hosted by Teach First participant Jane Prince
	Claire Young Business woman, Finalist of BBC's The Apprentice Public speaking Hosted by Teach First participant Helen Byrne
	Rachel Reeves MP History Hosted by Teach First participant James Rand
	Mark Pawsey MP Year 10 Business Hosted by Teach First participant Edward Salton
	Erwin Friederich Shell Business Hosted by Teach First participant Niall Alcock