About 60% of the graduates will stay in teaching after the course

Two hundred graduates, who enrolled on the Teach First course, were at the front of the classroom on Thursday after just 10 weeks of study.

For the next two years of the course they receive training in teaching and business while doing the job and at the end they become fully qualified teachers.

Some head teachers have said the graduates do not take the place of a teacher who has undergone normal training - usually a nine-month course - and are taking them on only because they have no other choice.

But Barbera Williams, principal of Norwood Girls School in Crown Dale, south London, told BBC London: "There's no doubt that across London recruitment and retention of high quality staff has been a challenge, a very serious one, over the past few years.

We've had so much support and I'm just raring to go New teacher Nicola Coupe

"I see the Teach First programme as a very important part of that strategy."

Eamonn O'Kane, the leader of the teachers' union the NASUWT, said even though able graduates were being taken on it did not ensure they would be as effective as traditional new teachers.

There are also concerns the business skills the recruits learn will see them leave the profession after just two years.

Brett Wigdortz, chief executive of Teach First, said the scheme is based on one which runs in the US where about 60% of people on the course stayed in the profession.

A new teacher at Norwood Girls School, Nicola Coupe, said: "I feel really prepared. I think the training has been really good.

"We've had so much support and I'm just raring to go."

The Teach First graduates will meet with tutors every two weeks and have contact with mentors within their school.