A microteach is a short lesson — "generally a 15 to 30 minute lesson", in the Department for Education's words — that you plan and deliver to the interview panel as part of an FE teaching, tutoring or assessing interview, sometimes with real students in the room. Its purpose, per DfE guidance, is "to see how comfortable you are presenting and to demonstrate your ability to plan and deliver a lesson". You will normally be given a topic or asked to choose your own, and told the exact length. The thing to understand before you plan anything is that you are scored on teaching, not on content coverage: a panel would rather see one small idea taught well, checked and landed inside the time than a whole scheme of work compressed into twenty minutes. Keep it to one thing, involve the learners, and finish on time.
Quotations and planning steps here are from the Department for Education's "Teach in further education" guidance, "How to prepare a micro teach for interview" (accessed 11 August 2026). The DfE writes "micro teach"; colleges usually write "microteach". The table timings below are our own worked example for a 20-minute slot, not a DfE prescription.
What is a microteach and why do colleges use one?
You are given a slot, you plan a session to fill it, you teach it — usually to the panel acting as your learners, sometimes to a small group of students the college has arranged — and then you reflect on how it went. Your learners are adults: this is post-16 further education, and pitching to a room as though they were children loses a panel faster than anything else.
Colleges use the format because a CV shows what you know and an interview shows how you talk about it — neither shows how you behave in front of a group. Observation is permanent in this sector: the Level 5 Diploma in Teaching (Further Education and Skills) requires a placement of at least 250 hours, including at least 150 hours of teaching practice and a series of observations (gov.uk qualification framework). The microteach is the first of them, and it comes before you are hired.
How long is a microteach and what will they ask you to teach?
In our day-to-day work recruiting across FE and skills, 15 and 20 minutes are the most common slots inside the DfE's 15-to-30-minute range; the length is stated in the invitation. Some colleges nominate the topic, some ask you to pick from your own subject, and some deliberately set an everyday topic outside your specialism, to see how you teach rather than what you know.
Read the brief as a spec, and ask four things before planning: how long you have, how many people will be in the room, who they are (panel members playing learners, or real students, and at what level), and what equipment is available. An activity built for eight learners does not survive contact with a panel of three. If this is your first time being observed, our guide to getting into FE teaching from industry covers what colleges expect alongside the microteach.
Asked to prepare a microteach? See the FE teaching and tutoring roles open now while you practise.
How do you plan a microteach that fits the time?
The DfE sets out five planning steps: give the session a clear beginning, middle and end; involve the learners; practise in advance; check what the audience has learned; and plan for problems. Its delivery advice: "be yourself", keep open body language, keep to time, test the technology, and keep it simple, because "you're only expected to teach learners one thing". What not to do: read from your notes, make the session "overly complex", or assume nothing will go wrong.
"Teach one thing" is the instruction candidates ignore most, and the one that does most damage. Pick a single demonstrable outcome an adult can acquire in the time — how to hold a knife safely, how to read one line of a payslip — write it as "by the end of this session you will be able to…", and delete anything that does not serve it.
Here is how a 20-minute session tends to break down — a worked example, not a rule.
| Stage | Roughly how long | What the panel is looking for |
|---|---|---|
| Set up and settle | 1–2 minutes | That you start on time without fussing over equipment, and greet the group as learners rather than as interviewers |
| Beginning — what and why | 2–3 minutes | A clear objective in plain language: the one thing they will be able to do by the end, and why it is worth knowing |
| Middle — teach the one thing | 8–10 minutes | An explanation or demonstration, then something the learners actually do; not a monologue, not a slide read-through |
| Check what they have learned | 3–4 minutes | Evidence that learning happened — a question round or a short task you can watch them complete. "Any questions?" is not a check |
| End — recap and close | 2 minutes | A tidy summary, a next step, and finishing inside the time rather than being stopped |
Write the plan on one side of paper, bring copies for the panel, and rehearse it out loud against a clock. Nearly every timing failure we hear about was a session never run at full length before the day.
What is the panel actually assessing?
This is where the published guidance stops and the recruiter's view starts. The panel is not scoring your subject knowledge — they accepted that from your CV. They are scoring whether you can be left alone with a group of adults next term. From what heads of department tell us, it comes down to five things.
Can you plan to a time? Finishing at 19 minutes with a proper close beats a brilliant session guillotined at 20. Do you check learning, or only deliver it? Finding out whether anything landed is the behaviour that separates a teacher from a presenter. Do you treat the people in front of you as learners, or perform at them? Are your instructions clear enough to follow first time — an activity that needs explaining twice is a classroom problem in miniature. And how do you respond when something goes wrong, which they will often let happen deliberately.
They also listen to how you talk about it afterwards: naming one thing you would change scores better than defending a session that overran. For the wider picture of the job, our guide on how to become a tutor in FE and adult education covers the role once the interview is over.
Want to know what a particular provider looks for? Talk to a recruiter who works in this sector every day.
What goes wrong most often?
Five failures come up again and again in provider feedback, all avoidable at the planning stage.
Overrunning. The most common reason a strong candidate scores badly. Cut off before your check of learning, and the panel never sees the part it most wanted to see. Build the session to land two minutes short.
Teaching at the panel instead of treating them as learners. If the panel are your group, use their names, ask them questions and hand them the task. Presenting to three seated adults as though pitching loses the thing being measured.
No check of learning. Sessions that explain, demonstrate, ask "any questions?" and stop. There is nothing there for an observer to write down.
Total dependence on slides or a projector. Test the technology, then plan a session that works without it — a handout or a physical prop is enough to teach the same 20 minutes in an empty room.
Compressing a whole scheme of work into twenty minutes. The opposite of the DfE's "one thing" instruction; it produces a rushed session with no room to involve anyone.
Do you need a teaching qualification first?
No — not legally, and not usually to be invited to a microteach. There has been no statutory requirement to hold a teaching qualification to teach in further education in England since 1 September 2013, when the 2007 regulations mandating it were revoked following the Lingfield review. The expectation is "qualified or working towards it".
The current qualifications are the Level 3 Award in Education and Training (AET), the Level 4 Certificate in Education and Training (CET) and the Level 5 Diploma in Teaching (Further Education and Skills). PTLLS, CTLLS and DTLLS are dead acronyms, and the DET was withdrawn for new registrations, replaced by the Level 5 Diploma for new starts from September 2024. Our explainer on how FE teaching and assessing qualifications fit together sets the ladder out side by side.
How Aptitude can help
We recruit only across further education, skills, apprenticeships and employability, and our founders came from delivery roles in it — so we can usually say how a provider runs its microteach, how long the slot tends to be and who will be in the room. The format varies far more between colleges than published advice suggests. See our advice for candidates, and tell us about the interview before you plan the session.
Got a microteach booked and want a second opinion? Start with the roles we are recruiting for now.
Frequently asked questions
How long is a microteach? The Department for Education describes a micro teach as "generally a 15 to 30 minute lesson" delivered to the interview panel, sometimes with students present. In FE, 15 and 20 minutes are the most common slots. Plan to the exact time and rehearse against a clock.
What should I teach in a microteach? One small, demonstrable thing an adult can learn in the time; the DfE's guidance is that "you're only expected to teach learners one thing". Pick something from your own subject if you are free to choose, write it as a single outcome, and cut anything that does not serve it.
Do I need a lesson plan for a microteach? Yes, and bring printed copies for the panel. One side is enough: your objective, the timings, the activity the learners will do, and how you will check what they have learned. The DfE is explicit that it demonstrates your ability to plan as well as deliver.
What if the technology fails during my microteach? Assume it might: the DfE lists "assume nothing will go wrong" among the things not to do. Test the equipment beforehand and design the session so it works without a projector — a handout, a whiteboard or a physical object will carry it. Handling a failure calmly scores better than a flawless run on slides.
Do I need a teaching qualification before my first FE interview? No. There has been no legal requirement to hold a teaching qualification to teach in further education in England since 1 September 2013, and colleges regularly hire on occupational competence and support you to qualify on the job. The expectation is "qualified or working towards it" — the Level 3 AET first, then the Level 5 Diploma in Teaching.
