When I was younger the only thing I remember telling people was that when I grow up I’ll be a primary teacher. This came from being brought up around lots of children of various ages which allowed me to see how natural working with them was. As I got older I started to babysit more for my neighbour’s around me (with my mum looking after them as well, we just pretended it was in my hands). It started as a couple of hours every week to a couple of hours every few days then, when I got older it changed to looking after them at dinner time where I would then put them to bed. I absolutely loved this! It allowed me to really bond with the children where they became comfortable enough to do their homework with me and read books to me rather than the other way around. This was something I looked forward to doing most weekends. I never saw it as a job as it so much fun! However, as I didn’t see it as a job I felt it was necessary to look into other fields of work because I thought, possibly, this was just a hobby I enjoyed doing at a young age but wouldn’t enjoy as much as a career.
Therefore, in my 4th year of school I realised that it was important to look into other fields of work as I had only ever thought about primary teaching.
My physics teacher encouraged me to look into engineering as I enjoyed the class so much and had shown determination and progress through out the two years of studying it. My dad also encouraged me to look into other career paths as it would give me an insight into how much variety is out there. Taking all this into account I spoke with my careers advisor where we discovered the different possibilities, some of these being; a nursery nurse, joining the RAF, an engineer, and working as a nanny. I then looked into these in more depth finding out more information to see what grabbed my attention. When doing this I got very interested in many different engineering apprenticeships however while looking at these I always came back to being a primary teacher. Nothing sounded as wonderful as teaching a class of children; academic subjects, social skills, communication skills etc. where I would have the privilege to watch them develop into young individuals, watching their personalities develop and watching them grow, developing their own opinions and views. Teaching was not just a career I had in mind but it was a career in which I practiced on a daily basis. Babysitting many children round my home area as stated above highlighted to me how much impact I was having on the children and how I was teaching them such little things while helping them work through their homework, reading, playing games, getting ready for bedtime and putting them to bed. When I started to think about all the small things I was teaching them every couple of weeks which they were still using when I saw them next filled me with such pride. The more I noticed this, the more my excitement grew to see them and find out what they had learned so I could work on it with them, showing them various ways of doing tasks and helping them develop their skills. However, with all this in mind I was still unsure whether primary teaching was the career for me or if working in a nursery would suit me best, therefore I took up my work experience in a nursery meanwhile making plans to help in a primary school when I was in my 5th/6th year of school.
In the nursery I was so thrilled with the work I got to do with the children. Setting up the little stations around the room in the morning then seeing them come into the hall where they would burst with excitement to start playing and learning at the stations was an incredible experience, knowing the stations I had set up were being used by children to learn and have fun was fantastic. During my week of work experience, I got to know the children and staff very well. It was such a great experience. I was offered an apprenticeship with them as they wanted me to become part of their team but, although it was an amazing experience which I was very passionate about, I felt there was something missing. I wanted to teach the children more, I wanted to see them develop and grow with skills I was teaching them however in a nursery I just didn’t feel I was able to use my skills to the best of my ability, nor could I make the impact I desired. I wasn’t able to show/teach the children many skills which would stay with them for the rest of their lives. I wanted more out of my time with these children and I strived to see them learn and develop in their time with me, however due to the short time scale and the activities I carried out with them during that time did not allow me to do this. This was incredibly significant, as I realised that working in a nursery was not the career I wanted for the rest of my life but I knew teaching children was.
In my 5th year of school my brother (who was 7 years old at the time) started struggling with his school work to the point where my family started questioning if the support he was receiving was enough. Myself and my parents discussed his work and his ability to do his homework, where we came to the conclusion that we should contact the school. Talking to the head teacher it was clear that my brother’s teacher had missed this as she hadn’t been keeping track of his work. We discovered that his struggles may have be early signs of dyslexia. Due to this the head teacher gave us a book called ‘Toe by Toe,’ which we were to carry out with him every night for 10 minutes, which would help him progress and catch up with the work he was falling behind on. Knowing how my brother felt about this I decided I wanted to do this with him every night which my parents supported. Every evening I worked with my brother to do his homework and work through this book, I also used other small day to day activities which I changed to try to benefit him meaning he didn’t always realise that he was working on his work so it wasn’t a chore which he got tired of. I would sit with him while he played Minecraft where I would ask him to tell me about all the different features of it. When we came across unusual words I’d pretend I didn’t understand the word he was saying, therefore I would ask him to spell it out for me, or when playing eye spy he would have to spell it rather than just say the word aloud. Similarly with Maths, I would ask him to help me deliver newspapers and count the money for me or calculate how long we had on the clock until meals were ready meaning he would strengthen his problem solving skills.
This was the period of time I realised that teaching, particularly teaching children, was something that I felt extremely passionate about; it is something that I adore and I take so much pride in my ability to help children. It never fails to amaze me what I can actually give the children in terms of confidence and life skills. Watching how they learn, develop and form their own skills, opinions and adapt work to their own comforts interests me hugely.
Starting this course has highlighted to me how excited I am to become to a teacher, I’m eager to learn new theories and develop my skills throughout this course. I’m thrilled to have started my journey on becoming the teacher I aim to be in the near future.
