Teach and live in Kent

Want to teach in Kent?

Kent is known as the ‘Garden of England’ because of its abundance of fruit-growing and hop gardens and lies on a peninsula from London almost to France in the South East corner of the UK. Could you see yourself teaching here?

More about Kent

Kent a large county and has a population of over 1.82 million people. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west. The county also shares borders with Essex along the estuary of the River Thames, and with the French department of Pas-de-Calais along the English Channel. The county town is Maidstone.

Kent ranges from the highly populated areas of Medway in the north (where 18% of the population live) to prosperous market towns like Tunbridge Wells, popular coastal resorts like Whitstable and Broadstairs and the channel ports of Dover and Folkestone. It also contains stunning countryside and the famous cathedral and university city of Canterbury.

Getting around

Kent is a popular place to live for commuters into London as it tends to be much less expensive than London and yet it is very easy to travel into the centre of London from there. Trains into London St Pancras from Folkestone on the Channel coast take 54 minutes on the UK’s fastest train line which also serves Ebbsfleet in the north of the county from where trains take only 18 minutes into London. The Elizabeth Line makes the northern part of Kent even more accessible with easy rail journeys across London from the east and west from Abbey Wood.London Transport makes finding and planning routes and booking journeys very simple and the National Rail website is excellent for rail journeys. It is worth remembering that for all journeys using public transport in the London area including parts of Kent the cheapest option is to use an ‘Oyster’ card (available from stations and many shops) or a contactless bank card.

There is also City Airport just across the river with rapid links using the forthcoming Elizabeth Line and the DLR: it is easy to fly from there to destinations all over Europe and in the UK.

Kent is the home of the channel ports with easy access to France and the continent using the frequent ferry services from Dover at and the Channel Tunnel from Folkestone. Teachers who live in Kent find it easy to go on holidays and weekends away in Europe as they are so close – you can see the French coast from Folkestone!

About schools in this region

There are currently 453 primary schools and 99 secondary schools in Kent. To view their OFSTED inspection reports please click here. Alternatively, you can compare the performance of the different schools by clicking here.

Kent Local Authority is unusual in the UK as it has kept the system of schooling set up after WW2 of grammar and non-selective secondary schools (formerly known as secondary modern schools) where nearly every other authority moved to comprehensive education from the 1960s onwards. Hence the selection test (aka the 11 plus) in Year 6 takes on an importance not seen in most other areas or counties and has a big impact on the work of primary schools.

Competition to get into grammar (academically selective) schools, whilst not on the same level as the highly selective schools in Chelmsford and Colchester in neighbouring Essex, is intense with between 25-30% of children attending these schools.

Kent is an area of real teacher shortage and we work closely with schools and Kent Teach, the overall teacher recruitment group linked to Kent County Council and have a significant number of our teachers placed there.

Point To Point works closely with teachers from around the globe who wish to work in Kent. We make sure that we profile teachers accurately so that we can match them with the right schools in Kent. We work in partnership with our schools, visiting all our teachers on-site and liaising closely with them to ensure that the placements are going well and that teachers feel secure and well supported.

If you would like to work in a school in Kent, please contact us. We would love to help you!