Growing Together ECF Pathways - Ted Bunn

In our first series of ECF Pathways, we chat with Ted, our lead on Growing Together and Aldridge Education's Early Career Framework programme about his career up until now.

Hello everybody, my name’s Ted and I’m the Trust Lead for Professional Development. I lead on supporting our ECTs and mentors on all things early career framework at Aldridge Education. I’ve worked at one of our schools in Brighton and before that, as our humanities lead.

I got into teaching through Teach First (now our lead provider of the ECF and NPQs at Aldridge). I remember speaking to my brother about the level of challenge, sense of fulfilment and pride he felt in his school during his time as a primary school teacher and following an unsuccessful stint attempting to play rugby and work as a gardener part-time abroad I decided teaching was the career for me.

I often think about my own personal successes and challenges with the ECF, but I suppose the biggest sense of success is seeing the ECTs grow. Grow and develop into not only great teachers but absolute rocks in their schools’ communities and in the lives of the young people they work for. While seeing a mentor’s satisfaction at helping their teachers become better is a pretty cool thing to experience, seeing those bonds grow. I think sometimes I miss this myself, seeing the impact live right in front of your eyes.

The challenge I always feel more acutely is how do I meet the needs of all the ECTs and mentors. Each has a different school context, environment and are human! It’s something we’ve worked hard on to ensure every school, mentor and ECT is supported, and has a good and strong level of support on different levels, as an absolute minimum, for them to be successful.

I don’t have many regrets in my teaching career (apart from not taking my year 12 rugby 7s team on to winning the county cup in my first year) but I think, one thing I missed when I was training and working out my craft was a pathway and framework of support to provide my own development. I took on loads of responsibility in my first few years in schools without really knowing what excellent teaching and classroom practice looked like. It was something I had to really work on as well as my leadership skills. So, what I’m saying is I would have killed for an opportunity to be coached and developed the way Aldridge does now. To have a mentor who cared deeply about etching out my teaching practice in real-time, ultimately getting myself better much faster than finding my own way in the dark.

Anyone that knows me, knows I love Michael Jordan. I love his attitude to practice and success. He once lost it when a reporter asked him about his ‘god given talent’, that such a statement suggests he didn’t work the hardest of any player in the NBA and he hadn’t worked for his achievements. It’s his belief about practice that gets me really thinking about how as teachers and educators in order to be successful we’ve got to practice too, with purpose, in a deliberate manner. Anders Ericsson who knows a bit or two about practice said "There is no such thing as a predetermined limit to how much we can improve. It’s all about purposeful practice” which is so true for us in schools! You’re not winning the NBA without practicing to shoot, and it’s the same when we step into the classroom.

One thing I do to switch off is exercise, all types. Rugby was something that has been really important to me over the past decade. One senior leader I really respected once said to me, ‘Ted make sure you find something you love when teaching and make it non-negotiable. That’s the thing that always comes first’, be that rugby, walking, family, whatever. So, every Tuesday, Thursday night and Saturday afternoon were mine, where I switched off, now that’s come to an end and I’ve taken up open-water swimming and competing in triathlons, which despite my best efforts remains slow and steady. However, that advice remains and is one the most powerful things I’ve learnt as an adult and professional.

Working at Aldridge I’ve been fortunate enough to get so much professional development to strengthen myself as an educator and professional. It’s a real privilege to work in an environment that challenges you every day but also gives you the freedom to grow and be the best you can be.

Thank you for reading my blog post, and I’ll finish with a thank you to all those helping our early career teachers help impact their communities where it matters most.

Ted is reading ‘Dreams from my Father’ by Barack Obama