I realised on the first Sunday of August in a year that I don’t think any of us will ever forget in a hurry that it had been eight years since I received that Certificate which confirmed that I had “attained qualified teacher status”. The day before, I saw a tweet posted by @MrWithers2020 asking if there were any others like him who had a work-life before teaching. So, inspired by brilliant blogs from @ChrisBravery and @marmitecamel, @MrHtheteacher setting the World to rights or the strength and candour of @teacher_mr_r writing openly about how mental health matters, I thought I would break out of the 280 characters I regularly post with irreverence and frivolity to show a deeper and more thoughtful side of me.
My route
into teaching hasn’t been a smooth one at all.
Like those appointed to teach ‘Defence of the Dark Arts’ at one of the
World’s most infamous ‘schools’ until the day that Tim Peake boarded the
International Space Station in December 2015, I had not survived three
consecutive terms at any of the schools I ‘worked’ for following QTS. Indeed, in similar vein to @teacher_mr_r
honesty on the importance of mental well-being, my own was completely shot to
pieces in less than a year of qualifying that I had asked my GP to refer me to
psychotherapy which I received for almost a year.
The
turnaround point for me was joining the amazing school I currently work for in
Christmas 2015. A school that had been
‘rated’ as ‘Requiring Improvement’ which had been incorporated into a
Multi-Academy Trust. The new management
or leadership team invited me to join them and I have not looked back
since. Their ‘can do and want to’
attitude was effectively the springboard that led me to be the teacher I am
today and how I see myself over the remainder of my career.
To be able
to perhaps understand a little better of who I am and where I’ve ‘come from’ as
it were, it might be worth winding the clock back with a personal potted
history. My parents came to London from
Hong Kong in the 1960s and I am the oldest of their three sons where my
brothers and I were all born in London. For those who might consider them as
‘immigrants’ my parents have since just before the start of this century been
residents of the United Kingdom longer than what might be described as their
‘Motherland’.
As the first
born of Cantonese speaking parents, my earliest recollection of school was
being treated with complete distain by the teachers who evidently knew not what
to do with somebody who was learning English as a new or second language. The EAL provision in 1970s schools in London
was effectively limited to encouraging me to sit in the book corner for many
lessons and finding things to read. So
when I meet children and their families whose first or home language is not
English, I always make sure that I go out of my way and as best I can to get as
many resources as possible to support their learning. I hope that when I share this story with my
students of my experiences about learning English for the first time and where
I’ve got to today as a ‘native user’, it might just inspire them a little to
know that I was once an EAL learner exactly like them.
School
during the 1970s were frequently disrupted by industrial action. For those who are enthusiasts of Modern
British Political History, these years were the ‘Winter of Discontent’. Three day working weeks became the norm at
one stage. My school would often be ‘closed’ because if it wasn’t for the
Unions directing school site staff to take strike action and directly forcing
schools to close, it would be a lack of fuel deliveries to heat the school or
hours of imposed electricity cuts caused by power stations having insufficient
coal stocks to meet demand. So for those
who continue to speculate on the disruption to learning and the long term
socio-economic implications as a result of the public health ‘policy response’
to Covid-19, it maybe worthwhile to draw and reflect on the past collective
experiences.
Despite
these disruptions to my primary schooling, my parents were and continue to
remain incredibly supportive of the opportunities that school and more broadly
education provides individuals. Their
encouragement for me to work on my reading and writing meant that the teachers
working with me began to see the potential I had to actually be a very capable
learner to the point that by the time I entered Secondary school and during my
time at lower Secondary level, I was regularly scoring the highest points in
internal assessments for almost every subject.
With sets or streams in practice at the time, I was destined or expected
to be one of the select group to achieve the maximum number of GCE O-Level
passes (yes, this is how old I am), perform well at A-Level and easily secure a
place at one of the Russell Group or traditional Universities.
However,
teenage curiosity got the better of me in 1982 when – and this is another
aspect of history that will never repeat itself – I unscrupulously and
dishonestly ‘acquired’ a credit card and attempted to buy a Citizens Band handset
or ‘transceiver’ as they were known then along with the electronic game that
was trending for Christmas that year.
Being fourteen and dressed in my school uniform, I would never have
passed for a credit card carrying adult.
I received a Police caution following my arrest. Thankfully, the whole experience was so
daunting and seeing the heartbreak on my family, I stayed on the straight and
narrow to the point that I’ve had DBS clearance to be able to have had a very
interesting work life before becoming a teacher – but more of that later…
Although I
didn’t turn into the vilified ‘juvenile delinquent’ that certain parts of the
media would have adults believe some young people are pre-disposed to becoming,
the experience of the arrest and Police caution inevitably had an adverse
impact on my learning. I was effectively
‘relegated’ from the group of students who would sit all their 16+ examinations
at the higher GCE O-Level standard to the more coursework based Certificate of
Secondary Education or CSE Examinations.
Given this life-line, I managed to secure a handful of school leaving
qualifications and enough to progress onto ‘converting’ the CSE qualifications
I had attended into GCE O-Level grades to qualify for a place on the school’s
A-Level programme to study Maths, Physics and Chemistry.
However
after two terms struggling with these subjects, the Head of Sixth Form at the
time persuaded me that the best course of action was to cut my losses and
consider seeking full time employment.
With unemployment at its peak in the mid-1980s, the prospect of securing
full time employment was daunting. With
the support of the Local Authority Careers Service I managed to secure a quick
succession of successful job interviews with different Government Departments. Being the naïve and unimaginative individual
I was, I decided to accept the offer to work with what was then a new
organisation that had been established that year – the Crown Prosecution
Service.
It was
working my way through and round the Crown Prosecution Service from Caseworker
to a Middle Management role by the time I left, senior colleagues regularly
praised me for my ‘people skills’ and would often assign me to roles where I
was essentially training others including a stint working on the BTEC in Estate
and Property Management programme at the now defunct Civil Service College. In 1997 when the ‘New’ Labour Government
swept into power for their first term of three consecutive Parliaments that
they announced the first major ‘root and branch’ reorganisation of the Crown
Prosecution Service since its inception eleven years before. It was at that point, seeing senior
colleagues receiving significant salary compensation offers to leave the Civil
Service that I decided I should have a plan should that opportunity ever arise
for me. Boosted by the encouragement of
my Managers, it was then that I revisited the idea I had originally envisioned
while at Secondary school of becoming a teacher. Making such a forecast about myself at
Secondary school for an English writing task, I distinctly remember the teacher
pouring such scorn on my ambition that it still bears an impression to this
day.
Concurrent
to all of this, I had originally intended when I joined the Civil Service to
only stay in full time employment until such time I had ‘saved’ enough cash to
return to full time study. The allure of
having a full time salary meant that I decided instead in 1991 to try to secure
a place on a degree course at Birkbeck College, London which specialised until
a few years ago to offer undergraduate study opportunities on a part-time
evening class basis. So for nearly six
years I would work my ‘nine to five’ then travel across Central London for
three hours of lectures and seminars two or three nights a week. I graduated in 1997 with a Lower Second in
Economic and Social Policy.
It was
because I was or am a graduate which meant that when the Labour Administration
led by Gordon Brown realised in 2010 that the Treasury coffers were virtually
out and a radical overhaul of the whole of the Civil Service was necessary,
that I was offered two years salary to leave the Crown Prosecution Service to
pursue the dream I had of becoming a teacher.
As I had
spent most of my time at the Crown Prosecution Service showing how digitally
literate I was and being assigned to roles where computerisation and technology
were significant elements of my duties, I had initially thought that I would
apply to teach Secondary Computing.
However, one Admissions Department offering a PGCE in Secondary
Computing thought I had poor charisma and connection with secondary students
which caused an unexpected rethink. The
rethink didn’t take long as I had also secured a volunteering role at an
amazing Primary School which opened my mind to the idea of becoming a Primary
teacher. So it was through that
volunteering role which became a part time paid role as its ICT Technician that
I managed to get a place on a PGCE Primary programme with Modern Languages
given my interest in wanting to specialise in teaching Primary level Chinese
based on my ‘Mother tongue’ subject knowledge.
I wouldn’t
want to put words into the mouths of those who most inspired me and gave me the
opportunity in June 2016 to attend the Raspberry Pi Certified Educators
Workshop weekend in Newcastle. It was
there that I met the brilliant @LegoJames and other members of the @CompAtSch
Community who encouraged me to apply for my school to secure certification as
one of the Computing at Schools Centre of Excellence which the school have held
since 2016. As a Multi-Academy Trust,
the Board of Trustees have a very forward thinking vision in the professional
development of its staff and in 2017 sponsored me with a cohort of others to
being our Masters in Educational Leadership at Manchester Metropolitan
University. My interest in the notion of
Scientific Capital and bringing equality of accessibility to Computer Science
for under-represented groups and specifically gender equality meant that I got
to share these ideas on the opening day of the BETT Show in January 2019 where
I was on the central Arena Stage appearing soon after the then Education
Minister had made his address. Having
such an involvement and passion for promoting teaching excellence of Computer
Science meant that it has only been natural that I should want to begin the
next chapter of my professional story by offering to lead the CAS Waltham
Forest Mixed Community as I expand my role to specialise in teaching Computing
from KS1 to KS5 combining my Primary experience with working alongside the
Secondary schools across the Multi-Academy Trust.
In thinking
about all of these examples, the common theme that drives me is that when those
metaphorical crossroads appear, I seem to have had the benefit of somebody
giving me another chance. My primary
school teachers realising my learning potential rather than limiting my
learning because I was EAL. The pastoral
care I received through the difficult times at Secondary school which enabled
me to make sufficient recovery to secure the handful of school leaving
qualifications. The support of the Local
Authority Careers Service with enabling a gawky and unconfident 17 year old to
secure a relatively successful, long and interesting career in the Civil
Service. Birkbeck College for the
opportunity to become an undergraduate as a ‘mature student’ which ultimately
enabled me to qualify for a place on the PGCE programme I completed. Working for senior colleagues who have a ‘can
do and want to’ attitude creating the opportunities to lead me to where I am
today, taking me into tomorrow and beyond.
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