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Adedeji Odunlami

Adedeji Odunlami (’04) Electronic and Communications Engineering, Bath
Taught ICT Islington Arts and Media School
Now Head of Year, Cardinal Pole RC Secondary School

I think addressing educational disadvantage was quite an important thing for me personally, because I was able to look at my own history and see that, you know, going to a school in East London a lot of people might be surprised at what I was able to achieve. And I just felt there were so many talented young people that I'd been to school with and, you know, still lived in those areas. I just wanted even the tiniest sense to be able in some way to encourage them that they also could achieve.

Walking in to school the first day actually was okay. The kids are sussing you out and you don’t quite realise, you think, okay, they seem quite receptive. But you do put on a front yourself as a teacher, you try to come across very confident, but very soon kids start to challenge, and I think that’s when after the first week, when you’re really being tested and you have to rise to that challenge.

I think I feel most proud of just how much I’ve cared. I didn’t really think when I first started that I would. I knew I wanted to make a difference, but I did think I would spend two years and probably go and do something else, and maybe much later in life come back and get back in to teaching. But I’ve gone in and I’ve realised I really, really passionately care about, you know, pupils being given options in life.

There was a girl in Year 11 who I’d worked really, really hard with and put so much energy in to trying to help, because I had that whole thing of, you know, no kid that was in my class - I wasn’t going to lose any pupils. Most of the rest of the department said, look, you’re wasting your time with her, in fact, she’s sucking a lot of energy away from being able to help pupils who could really benefit from it. I have that kind of real belief now I’m not going to give up. And, to be honest, I think just before the end of term, even I got a bit tired and said look, you’re going to have to be able to help yourself a bit more. But also fantastic was actually coming back in September and the results - we had the results, and we were going through, and the Head of Department wrote her name, she’d passed, and all of them were like they couldn’t believe that she’d passed. I mean, that just made me smile.

Well, after my two year experience I was elected by my peers on the programme to sit within the staff body of Teach First for a year as part of the President, so that was quite a hands on way to continue to be involved in the mission. And then since that time I’ve started teaching again, so I’m currently in this school, another Teach First school in East London.

I think pupils soon realise after they’ve finished that it really isn’t about just doing two years and going off somewhere else, that actually, you know, you continue to be involved, and the organisation always provide ways where you can do that. I think so many people actually just - that experience it’s really hard to just totally walk away, and I think if you’re someone who says I don’t know, I think the next two years, like, I just want to kind of relax, probably Teach First isn’t for you. But if you think, you know, right, I want to go in there, I’ve got big dreams, I can dream, you know, big, and I want a real go at trying to make something happen in the next two years, I say you should definitely, definitely consider it.