Rookie Teacher - Part Two

In my second instalment some reflections of my first two weeks in teaching.

It was fascinating to witness the age-old conundrum of trying to impress on young people about to leave school the benefits of taking further education seriously as well as enjoying life.

Sharing some personal observations from my own misspent youth with a group I explained how I could have been in the job I love so much quicker if I had secured decent qualifications earlier. Whilst this made some impact the comment about getting to a role with a six-figure package earlier seemed to have much more impact.

There are some wonderful initiatives which focus on attracting young people into further education and specifically apprenticeships from families where no-one has gone into further education before. The focus is not preachy, it aims to provide the potential students with the best information and to gently challenge some of the myths about carrying on in education such as it is expensive, and they are not good enough. The one problem a rural county like Norfolk has which is a real issue is transport so let’s all hope the pledges about more rural buses come to fruition.

The passion and energy of the folks involved in these initiatives which is clearly infectious to the students indicates a robust and effective selection process. I can only hope the funding continues as we need every young person to fulfil their maximum potential as the demographic time bomb approaches.

This week I am preparing my first sessions which start next week after half-term and, no, teachers do not have all the school holidays off, the roles are full time 52 weeks a year with holidays being taken mainly during the term breaks.

My design challenges are numerous and complex, and I will be looking to all my new teaching colleagues and linked-in teachers to help me. The main issues that I see include the massive amount of content which has to be covered in a relatively short time to enable students to communicate a thorough understanding of the subject through a narrow definition of how that subject is defined with in the standards for essays, exams and assignments. Among these challenges lies my personal goal to prepare students for the business world so that they achieve a BA hon in business administration and are at the front of the line for employers as the best candidates who know how to apply their learning.

In my next instalment, how my first sessions went down with the students....