“ Unique skills preparing me for my future career”
Do you want to be part of shaping the future and at the same time gain unique skills that will prepare you for your future career? Lena Khudeza, Retail Bank Manager at HSBC tells us about her experience teaching for Teach First.
Q: Can you tell us a little bit about Teach First’s Leadership Development Programme?
LK:During two years the programme combines working, qualifying and training as a teacher with leadership development training, coaching and mentoring. We also had a range of networking and internship opportunities.
Q: Why did you decide to do the programme?
LK: Being the first person in my family to go to university, education has opened up so many opportunities for me. It’s what really drives my passion for teaching and Teach First. I wanted to gain leadership skills and help a fantastic cause and mission whilst at the same time shaping my own future.
Q: And did teaching meet your expectations?
LK: Absolutely, it was extremely rewarding. Some of the experiments we did, like dissections, meant a lot of pupils were quite squeamish at first, but by the end of it they were all digging into the hearts and lungs. I would hear them go around school telling others “Miss Khudeza’s class does dissections. Why can’t we do them?” That was a really good feeling.
Q: Can you tell us more about the experiences you had teaching?
LK: There were many fantastic experiences and lessons learned. I think the ‘out of school hours’ element of the programme was really important. I learnt a lot from colleagues and people that had done the scheme before me. In the second year I was able to take my Year 9 pupils to the Jaguar Land Rover factory and show them how chemicals and materials are used and their relevance to the real world.
I think that’s where a lot of people struggle with science. They tend to think, ‘Well, I’m not going to use this once I leave school, so why should I do it?’ When they came back to school, and were still talking about it, that’s when I knew I had actually achieved something.
Q: What happened when you were done with the programme?
LK: Throughout the programme I had a Commercial Manager at HSBC as a coach, who helped me within the classroom as well as professionally. Together we analysed the skills I had, the skills I wanted to develop, and where I wanted to go in the future. I am now a Retail Bank Manager on the HSBC graduate programme, which is fantastic. Although it’s completely different from the world of teaching, I am able to transfer a lot of the skills that I used.
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