Apply for Teach First Denmark

This two-year program is a career in elementary school and in education. It is a community for people who want to contribute to strengthening the future opportunities for all children in Denmark.

Program Structure

Teach First Denmark’s two-year program is intensive on-the-job training and parallel education.

• Summer or winter academy before program start
  • Before school starts in either summer or winter, you must set aside time to complete the summer or winter academy. The summer academy lasts 3 weeks and takes place at the end of June/beginning of July, while the winter academy lasts 4 days and takes place in the month of October. You must participate in the academy that corresponds to your admission, so summer admissions participate in the summer academy and winter admissions in the winter academy. At the academy you will be equipped with intensive practical and theoretical teaching in didactics, pedagogy and classroom management. Both the summer and winter academy end with you teaching vulnerable children at one of Lær for Lifet’s learning camps with an overnight stay at the camp. The academy is a compulsory part of the program for the admission you follow, so the summer academy is compulsory if you are admitted for summer start, and the winter academy is compulsory for winter start.
• Program
  • You will be employed at a primary school, and most often on a full-time basis. In some cases, schools advertise part-time positions. But most positions are full-time. You will be assigned a personal teaching mentor from Teach First Denmark, with whom you can spar and who will give you observation-based feedback on your teaching at school. At the same time, you study a specially arranged credit teacher training with teaching two evenings a week either physically or online and regularly participate in professional and social networking activities with other graduates at Teach First Denmark. It will make you better at teaching, solving problems and driving change in challenging environments.
• About your mentor
  • At the start of the programme, you will be assigned a teaching mentor who is an experienced primary school teacher with extensive experience in teaching, observing and giving feedback. Your mentor will help you with your professional challenges. The mentoring scheme is a mandatory part of the program and helps to ensure the quality of your development course. Your mentor uses two observation and evaluation methods to give you feedback: CLASS and the Tripod Students Survey.
  • In the first year, you can expect around 6-7 visits from your mentor at your school, where your mentor observes your teaching and subsequently gives you concrete and constructive feedback and sparring. In the second year, there will be fewer physical visits from your mentor. You can always call or write to your mentor if you need to.

Is the program paid?

• As a graduate, you are paid a monthly salary by your school according to the applicable collective agreement for teachers in primary schools. The average salary for new teachers is approx. DKK 32,000 per month incl. fixed allowance + 17.3 per cent in pension + 1.38 per cent. in discretionary allowances, which you choose yourself whether you want to receive as salary or pension. In addition, there are any local salary supplements, which depend on the collective agreement in the individual municipality.

Is the program accredited?

• The part of the program that includes the credit teacher training is ECTS-accredited. To be a qualified credit teacher, you must complete 150 ECTS. This corresponds to approx. 3 years of study, but your individual study time may vary.
• In some cases, you can have credits transferred from the start of the program on the basis of your higher education. This will depend on an individual assessment. Whether you get credits transferred has no bearing on whether you can be admitted to the programme.
• Teach First’s graduate program follows you through the first two years of the qualification teacher training. You complete the final year on your own, but with a large network of other alumni as support.
• Whether you get credits transferred has no bearing on whether you can be admitted to the programme.

Duration

• The summer academy starts in mid-June each year and lasts approximately 3 weeks with a program every weekday from 9-17 and one or two weekends.
• The winter academy takes place in the month of October and lasts 4 days from 9-17.

What are they looking for?Here are some of the things they look for:

• You can create good relationships
  • You show abilities to collaborate, recognize and motivate others. You meet everyone with high and positive expectations.
• You have drive and are persistent
  • You show the ability to handle opposition and resolve conflicts. And to keep going when it’s hard.
• You are committed and professionally skilled
  • You are professionally skilled and show the ability to think new things, take initiative, learn from yourself and engage others around you.
• You want to develop yourself
  • You are ambitious and motivated by challenges. You can use feedback to develop and achieve your goals.

Eligibility Criteria

• They encourage all interested parties, regardless of age, gender, religion or ethnicity, to apply. They admit the best qualified applicants on the basis of entrance exams.

Criteria

• Area and major
  • Geographical area
    • They collaborate with primary schools throughout the Capital Region as well as Kalundborg/the rest of Zealand. It is therefore of great value that you are flexible in relation to where you want to be a graduate. Regardless of which area you choose, they cannot guarantee you employment at a school close to where you live. The reason is that you will be employed at the school where there is a vacancy and the best match, and where you can make the biggest difference.
  • Major subjects and elective subjects
    • In the application form, you must wish to major. This is the main subject you study on the merit teacher education, which is part of the programme.
    • You can choose between Danish and mathematics. If you are offered admission, the major will be stated in the offer. Your admission will be conditional on you still wanting the chosen major.
  • The recording process
    • They accept an average of 10-15 percent of all applicants. They do this on the basis of written applications and practical entrance exams. Some of what they focus on is your motivation and your ability to communicate, mediate and collaborate.

For more information, visit Teach First Denmark.