Katie Lawrence

Katie graduated with a BA (Hons) English Literature in 2008 and is now an Assessment Centre Officer for Teach First.

On my current role

My role involves assessing candidates who wish to join Teach First's Leadership Development Programme, supervising the assessment centres and making hiring decisions. I am also involved in the designing and evaluation of the assessment materials. I attended a talk by Teach First whilst at University and decided it was a programme I wanted to part of. During my final year I applied for a place and started training 10 days after my final exams.

On studying at The University of Manchester

My first role was to teach in what proved to be a challenging, but rewarding, school. The skills I gained studying English helped hugely throughout my time teaching. Being able to pass on the skills and knowledge from my degree to hundreds of students was beneficial and rewarding. I helped my GCSE class achieve 100% A*- C, up from 40% the previous year, leading me to take up the position of Deputy Head of English at the age of 22.