Please briefly describe your journey to become a teacher.
I carefully considered my choice of career from a young age and my passion for teaching grew due to the positive experience I had personally within education. My desire to become a teacher can be first traced back to my years competing as a semi-professional Taekwondo athlete. Being trained by expert coaches, as well as gaining the full support from my subject teachers, showed me just how inspirational and enthusiastic teachers can be towards the aspirations of others. After retiring from competitive action, I was very fortunate to achieve my sports coaching qualifications and open my very own Taekwondo centre within the UK. Whilst voluntarily running my own centre, I was also working full time as a Primary school PE teacher across many reputable schools within the North West of England. It was because of this teaching experience that I decided to obtain my professional teaching qualification. In 2017, I graduated from Liverpool Hope University and went onto complete my NQT year at a well-established Secondary school in Liverpool, UK. I am now entering my 3rd international teaching year with Britannica and I feel very happy to be leading the PE department this academic year.
What do you enjoy about being a teacher?
I find that I work at my best when faced with fresh and exciting challenges which is why I love teaching - every day is a new day. I am very grateful that I have found a career that I can truly enjoy and thrive in and I am honored to be part of such a profession whereby you have the opportunity to make a difference in every child’s life.
With my specialism being in Physical Education (PE), I have a profound interest in student participation within PE; I truly believe PE is a subject which has the potential to broaden the mind of every student no matter their age, background, ability and/or interest. What’s more, I feel PE gives students the opportunity to develop a wide range of skills as well as knowledge within such a diverse and evolving subject.
Teaching PE has been an exciting opportunity for me which I have wholeheartedly embraced and I have found working with young people highly rewarding and stimulating. I am highly passionate about improving students’ learning and providing them with learner satisfaction as well as getting the best from them.
How do you view the role of the teacher?
Teachers play a vital role within the lives of many students. Many people believe teachers are best known for educating students; however, they are so much more. Teachers set the tone of their classrooms, build warm and caring environments, mentor and nurture students as well as become role models to many.
When it comes to teaching, teachers have the ability to teach in many exciting and creative ways. In doing so they are creating very positive and exciting learning environments. Students tend to mimic teacher actions: if the teacher prepares a warm, happy and positive classroom environment then the students are more likely to be happy throughout the day.
Mentoring is also a natural role teachers take on, whether this be intentional or not. Mentoring is critical for the encouragement of a pupil’s all round success. Through positive mentoring, students are able to enjoy their learning experience as well as build their confidence within lessons.
Finally, teachers typically do not think of themselves as role models, however, inadvertently they are. Students tend to spend a lot of time with their teacher; therefore, teachers become a role model to them. Teachers are there not only to teach the children but to also care and nurture them throughout school life.
How does Britannica nurture its Students?
Since being at Britannica, I have been very fortunate to teach across EYFS, Primary and Secondary and I have seen first-hand how our teachers at Britannica value the school’s vision and ethos by promoting the academic, social and emotional well-being of all our students. A lot of our teachers nurture students by fostering a question-friendly environment; this encourages them to practice generating ideas and encourage new skills as well as modeling creativity within the classroom. What’s more, the added family-feel we have around the school helps support the school’s hope for our students to always strive in becoming more inspiring, inclusive, collaborative and empowering. We always thrive to bring out the best in all our students no matter their age, background or ability. We, too, as teachers are also continuously learning as we work together in order to create and develop new ways that best enhance our students’ ways of learning.
Tell us about your Director of Sport role.
As the new Director of Sport here at Britannica, I intend to lead my department in the building, development and implementation of a curriculum that provides our students with the best possible sports provision. By having a high-quality PE curriculum, we promote a love of sports for our students and a determination to succeed in a wide variety of sports and physical activities. This quality provision will also enable them to increase their sporting knowledge as well as develop a range of skills in order to perform successfully. As a result, they develop their confidence to take part in many different sporting activities and learn about the value of leading happy, healthy and active lifestyles.
I also want to bring to our students more of an understanding of what they like to do, what their current skills and abilities are, and how and where they can get involved with extra-curricular sporting activities - therefore guiding them into making informed choices about lifelong physical activity. Through the range of experiences our PE curriculum has to offer, I want to be able to encourage our students to learn how to be effective in competitive, creative and challenging situations.
Furthermore, I want to push inter-school and intra-school competitions which in turn will help nurture student sportsmanship in all aspects of competition, whilst also widening our students sporting experience and creating a passion for sport. Overall, I want to enlighten a healthy and active lifestyle whilst also assisting students in reaching their maximum physical potential through sport and physical activity.
