My introduction to teaching happened, as a volunteer, back in 2004. I spent Friday mornings, for around an academic year, at Prospect Community College in Reading - running a Young Enterprise business programme for off-curriculum learners.
I was given ten boys and girls aged 15 who had disengaged from mainstream lessons because of a variety of personal and family challenges; for example, one was already a Dad. I found working with the Prospect “difficult” learners sometimes shocking, but really enjoyable and uniquely rewarding.
One of my Best Teaching Moments
For example - with a little bit of encouragement and dashing of their expectation of failure - the Prospect Young Enterprise company reached the Reading Area Finals of the schools competition. As a team, they stood on the main stage in Reading Town Hall and presented a speech about their YearBook business. As well as pupils from state, grammar and private schools, head teachers and the mayor, they faced one of their local heroes, Sir John Madejski, the main funder of the local Madejski stadium.
During the tea break, it my was my "difficult" group who cornered John in the break and quizzed him about his business knowledge - not those from the private schools. That my group had developed such motivation to learn and the courage to ask questions made me very proud.
I felt I had made a real difference to their life chances – what a feeling.
Little did I know it, but this would prove to be one of my best teaching moments, and the moment that later inspired me to apply to Activate Learning and move into teaching as a career.
High Flying Job Satisfaction?
Actually, I have missed out a lot of detail from this story. I had just completed an MBA and was working in London in a senior role in a multinational company.
I was flying to the US and Europe as part of my job, yet my job satisfaction was nothing compared to that of working with those young people.
Activate Learning - Banbury College
Let’s come right up to date now. In August of 2020 I was hired by Activate Learning in Banbury to teach GCSE Maths to young adults in the Lifeskills faculty - many had learning or behavioural challenges.
I have not looked back. I have had the same joy and motivation that I had back in Reading. I also took on extra subjects; Laser Awards Level 1 IT with Business, and Science for the Electively Home Educated.
The Science Connection - and the Birth of my Creative Storylines
I the five years prior to joining Activate Learning, I had founded and run ScienceClubz Ltd, a science after school club company, and loved creating fun storylines like:
"Can we Power Spaceships with Poo?"
I have used the unusual approaches I devised for teaching pure sciences to primary children in my GCSE Maths lessons.
I have developed a set of engaging (I think) overarching themes to cover the entire GCSE Maths curriculum. Learners laugh, they are intrigued. They seem to find it interesting.
To give you a flavour, some of my themes are below.
More Best Teaching Moments - Festival 21
After the Easter break of 2021, GCSE maths tests were complete, and I asked my learners what they wanted to do until the end of the college year.
One of my themes had been the Glastonbury Festival, and I'd decorated the back of the classroom with some of the ideas from the lesson. They said they wanted to plan a festival in the college grounds for the Lifeskills learners.
With the support of my boss, Lucy Donaghy, and other managers and facilities leaders, we got the go ahead, for a socially distanced event.
The maths learning was there, of course; the students developed a Maths pack - added to as they discovered maths-related activities they needed to do as part of the planning.
The whole project really did bring the best out of a large group of our learners. Project Management skills, cookery skills, scheduling skills, purchasing skills. But let me tell you about two of our learners.
The story of G
The first is called G. He was not the keenest learner in our group; attendance and achievement quite variable as his lessons clashed with his new job at a local store where he was able to earn hard cash. But during the Festival 21 planning, he actually came in to college, during the half term holiday, to do the financial plan for his stall - Ice Creams. He sat with me, in the classroom, and worked out how many ice creams he needed to buy, what each cost, what they would all cost, how much he would sell for, and what profit he could make. If you knew G, you would be very impressed by his commitment.
The story of E
The second learner is called E. During the year, E struggled to keep focused as his dyslexia caused him frustrations in the classroom that he felt difficult to control, though his attendance was impeccable and he tried very hard to keep engaged. During the festival planning, E took the role of Head of Security. He recruited his team, produced a minute-by-minute schedule, and organised the zones they would patrol to keep everyone safe. I was so proud of him for his organisational skills, as well as for maintaining his cool throughout the festival itself and indeed, keeping everyone safe.
I have many other stories of students who excelled during the festival planning and at the festival itself; the whole project was a teaching dream come true. Apart from management, teamwork, bunting production and a host of other skills, Maths was learned, almost as a by-product. Completely painless!
We held the festival on the last day of the college year. The sun shone and we all had a blast.
Scroll through some images of our festival, below.
The arrow will appear if you hover towards the left of the left-hand photo.
Why, now, a PGCE?
So, I hope you get that I'm enthusiastic about teaching. There is just one thing missing. I am quite the perennial student, but what I don’t have is a PGCE. I want to learn how it *should* be done.
I have worked, as a teacher, for one academic year without teacher training. I have tried to learn from others as well as rely on my own enthusiasm, but I know for sure I would be so much more effective at improving the outcomes for my learners if I was professionally trained.
There are areas I am particularly interested in – such as learning philosophies and theories, and how to teach, more effectively, students with extra needs such as dyslexia and especially Asperger’s (though the term is not used as much I have learners who like to identify using it.)
I am leading a cross-campus video conference on SEND Tips for GCSE Maths Teachers to gather existing expertise and raise our game, and I know that working on a PGCE will give me the time to focus on the latest best practise from outside Activate Learning.
My goal is to develop my expertise in this area in particular.
My Hopes for the Future of Teaching
We know that technology will continue to develop and that teachers need to embrace it, and use every tool they can to get the best outcomes for learners. But what I feel is important about this development is to ensure that technology does not end up producing "one size fits all" content.
There are so many different challenges to learning out there, and individualised teaching requires a huge effort by teachers. They need to get to know their learners' challenges, and adapt materials, style and expectations accordingly.
What I hope will happen is that technology enables teachers to be better at producing and delivering to the individual learner. As new technologies are designed and produced, teachers need to stand up for those with ASD, ADHD, dyslexia, anxiety, visual impairment, and the rest of those learning hurdles that young people have to manage, and ensure that their needs are directly embedded into the systems of tomorrow, to provide the best learning experience for everybody.