From aspiring manager to teacher

Nicola gets a taste of a Year 7 electronics class

As the drive to recruit more teachers intensifies, people considering a change of career are being given the chance to get a taste of teaching.

The Teacher Training Agency's Open Schools Programme allows prospective teachers to spend a day-in-the-life of a teacher.

BBC News Online's Katherine Sellgren met one career changer at Ranelagh secondary school in Bracknell, Berkshire.

Confident, warm and with obvious get-up-and-go, 25-year-old Nicola Rees seems just the sort of person the teaching profession is crying out for.

Having successfully gained a place on a graduate trainee scheme, Nicola has worked for Tesco in a managerial role for three and a half years.

Nicola Rees plans to give up a fast-track position with Tesco

But despite a mortgage to pay, a salary of over £25,000, good career prospects and responsibility for four section managers, Nicola wants to become a design and technology teacher.

"The part of my job I really enjoy is working alongside people from different backgrounds and with varied abilities and getting the best out of them to achieve the goal I have in mind.

"And I've been feeling for a while that, although I enjoy my job, it's not as fulfilling as I had hoped.

"I want to do something where I feel I'm making more of a difference. But I want a career where I can keep what I've got - working with people."

Spending a day at Ranelagh school provided Nicola with the chance to observe lessons, talk to teachers and confirm that teaching was the way forward for her.

Teaching 'ignored'

There was no big recruitment drive for teaching while Nicola was studying for a degree in design, technology and business studies at Plymouth University.

The aim of the Open Schools programme is to give a taste of teaching

"I was on a very industrial-based course which was firing you up for a job in industry.

"We had careers sessions with the course tutor and teaching wasn't mentioned.

"I was just not aware of the opportunities within teaching - if someone had mentioned it I'd have thought of a primary school and I didn't know about PGCEs - I thought you had to do a BEd," she said.

Useful experience

Far from regretting her career with Tesco, Nicola believes she will be a better teacher as a result.

"The experience I've gained working in a business environment will help - I can back theory up with example.

"So I don't think it would have been a better thing for me to have gone straight into teaching," she said.

Nicola gets to watch a teacher in action

And - music to the government's ear - Nicola first started thinking about a career in teaching three months ago when she saw a TTA advertisement on the television.

"It sparked my interest," she said.

"And, as I started looking into it, I realised there were opportunities and that I had the experience and qualifications to become a teacher - and that there would only be one year's studying.

"You can do loads of different things - be a tutor, a head of department, as well as teach the subject," she said.

Unrealistic view?

But was the visit to Ranelagh school - a neat, well-kept, Church of England-funded beacon school, where the pupils clearly enjoyed their schooling - giving a slightly false view of what teaching in a state secondary school might be like?

Nicola wants to teach in a shortage area: Design and technology

Perhaps, Nicola said and laughed as she remembered that she had double checked on arrival that she was indeed visiting a state school.

Spending time at a school in less privileged circumstances was something she would look into, she said.

And - crucially - did the day at Ranelagh School add another teacher to the government's books?

"There's been nothing to put me off - not yet anyway! If I get accepted onto a course, I'll definitely do it," she said.

So far only 40 visits have been arranged under the TTA's Open Schools Programme.

The organisation hopes to expand the scheme by the end of this academic year, with up to 500 schools opening their doors to prospective teachers.