Teach First NZ

Teach First NZ is a not-for-profit organisation that works in partnership with the University of Auckland to attract highly-qualified, well-rounded university graduates and professionals to secondary schools serving lower-decile communities. Programme participants with specialist undergraduate degrees in high-priority subject areas (English, Te Reo, Mathematics, Science), are selected to enter into an intensive eight-week residential training programme. Participants are then placed in a salaried teaching position in a lower-decile secondary school for two years with on-going support, mentoring and development before graduating as fully-qualified teachers. Long-term, we aim to develop the leadership capability of participants so that they can contribute to reducing educational disparities from systemic levels - our broader goals include building a community of alumni who work together and with others to advance educational opportunity, within schools, in the wider education community, and in other sectors of influence. Examples from longer-running overseas sister programmes include alumni working as school middle/senior leaders, school trustees, in education policy and business. Overall, we also aim to work to improve the status of teaching, and to break down damaging stereotypes of 'low-decile schools'. Teach First NZ is supported by the Ministry of Education, the Secondary Principals Association of New Zealand, and a range of corporate sponsors including ASB Bank, Chapman Tripp, and Deloitte.