Matthew Godfrey's Education Blog

Earlier this year, Matthew Godfrey, 29, explained why he had decided to give up his business career to train to be a teacher. Later, he described his experiences as a trainee at two contrasting London schools. Now he has embarked on his new career This article appeared in The Daily Telegraph on 7 October 2000 LAST month, newly qualified and somewhat apprehensive, I arrived at my first teaching post, ready for action. I knew the school - an "improving" inner-city comprehensive - because I had completed half my training there last year. "Back for more of the same, then?" asked a new colleague as a stream of boisterous teenagers stormed by. Despite its location in fashionable Fulham, south-west London, Hurlingham and Chelsea School has a classic inner-city profile: more than half of its pupils are entitled to free school meals, nearly half are from ethnic minority backgrounds, and nearly a third have some kind of special educational need. Indeed, there are...