My name is Abbie Kelly and I am currently at the University of Dundee. Where I study an MA Hons in Primary Education. I was able to gain my place on the course through determination, hard work and a drive to succeed. I understand I need all these skills in order to be an undergraduate.

Primarily, I first realized that I wanted to become a Primary teacher and work with children; when it came to my year ten work experience. I chose to work at St Johns C of E Primary School, in Watford England. Where my Auntie was in fact head Teacher. Whilst I already knew I had the passion and the drive to work with children, this experience reinforced that. I understand that in order to be an undergraduate this experience was important as it will help me during my placements.

I knew that in order to succeed in going on to become an undergraduate, I had to achieve excellent grades. This was because as I knew primary teaching is an extremely competitive course to get onto. In fifth year at St Paul’s Academy, Dundee I managed to gain great higher results. This meant that in sixth year I only needed to achieve a B in my higher RMPS, and a B in my intermediate mathematics. This was the conditional offer that the University of Dundee presented me with.

However, I realized that In order to give myself the best possible chance to be accepted and offered a place at university and be an undergraduate I not only needed good grades, but the practical knowledge, skills and experience in my chosen field of study. With this in mind I dedicated four hours every week to volunteering with children. This volunteer work meant I was working with children age ranged from four to thirteen. For two hours on a Thursday afternoon I would spend time working at St Luke’s and St Matthews Primary School, Dundee. Where I would rotate and work with a different year group each week, this included building up experiencing in working with composite classes. I also dedicated my further two hours to working in a high school with first and second years in order to see what level a child should be at by the time the reach secondary school. On reflection, I believe that my time spent at both the high School and the Primary School really helped me develop the skills and gain the knowledge I needed to decide that Teaching was something that I really, truly wanted to do.

Moreover, these experiences helped me write my personal statement, which is vital when applying to University. For Primary teaching you really have to make sure that in your personal statement you are a reflective person. Meaning that you are able to take your experiences and portray to others what you have learnt from them. From my personal statement I was then given an interview and the University of Dundee.

Prior to the interview I was sent an emailing explaining that when we got to the interview we would have to deliver a three to five minute presentation on Malia Yuesfus speech “One pencil, one promise” ; and from this we would need to explain our thoughts and opinions of this statement and what we had learnt from this. So at the interview, first we were split into groups and taken to different rooms, this is where we were given a group ice breaker and discussion task; after this we said our presentations. Then finally it was a group discussion. The interview seemed to go well, and six days after the interview as mentioned before I was given my conditional offer of a B in int 2 mathematics and higher RMPS. I understood that in order to be a successful undergraduate I would need to maintain this high level of hard work.

I work extremely hard and focused the rest of the year and then when results day came and I had found out I had exceeded my condition by getting two A’s I was extremely happy. I had officially gained my place at Dundee University.

My goal whilst I am here is to take every experience on offer, gain valuable experience that I can use after I graduate. Then finally I would love to become a fully qualified teacher, who inspires young people to make a difference.

MY EDUCATIONAL PHILOSOPHY

This is my Educational Philosophy in the attached document. However, my educational philosophy my change, adapt and develop.  My Educational Philosophy.docx

Writing this has helped me decide that I previously had a very limited educational Philosophy. Yet due to the workshop able to adapt my philosophy on education and debate with other people about what I believed was right and wrong in terms of behaviour management. I know see that it is important to try and positively praise children in terms of trying to manage there behaviour. In addition, prior to this I did not feel that I had really ever thought about the ethos of a school. My educational philosophy would have been very anecdotal. But as you can see from the attached document; I do have many thoughts of education and what it means for the people in my care. I feel like this will greatly improve throughout  my years as I gain more and more experience as a class room teacher.