By Matthew Cooper
Matthew has been a teacher for 5 years and currently teaches maths at Healing School, where he trained through Humber Teaching School’s programme.
I think a lot of people have certain expectations when they enter into their teacher training year, from previous work they have done in schools, from people they know who have recently completed teacher training or from veteran teachers. However, the only experience I had of education before becoming a teacher was helping train apprentices in my previous job. As such, I entered my teacher training with no expectations at all, and for me this was perfect. It allowed me to see my training year for what it was: a chance to create my own expectations of the job, of the children and of myself.
I chose the school-led path as I thought that spending the majority of time with one provider would give me the best chance to experience what life was really like in a school. I spent all but six weeks at my first placement school and really became a part of the community.
I was really happy with both the provider I chose and the two schools I was placed in, as both of my mentors had a wealth of experience. My first placement was in a school that faced some challenges, but the passion and the effort from every teacher was inspiring. My mentor was a teacher of some 30+ years who still prided himself on being at the forefront of teaching and learning, but he never forced a particular style on me. This freedom was invaluable to me and transformed my training year into a self-reflective and personal journey, which helped me develop skills that have stuck with me throughout my career.
My second placement was in a contrasting school, but I still found the same values of passion and pride in the craft of teaching running through everybody there. Again I was allowed to teach the way I wanted to and guided in how best to put my ideas into practice. I found that all of the people involved in my training wanted me to succeed and always struck the right balance between support and independence.
Since that training year I have gone on to develop my teaching immeasurably, but I still reflect every day on how things are going and ask myself whether I can do better. And what I love about this career is that I constantly talk to people that are doing the same.
I have found teaching to be a job like no other. While my training year was a huge leap in my development, my training as a teacher will never really be complete as I am constantly evaluating and improving on the methods I use in the classroom. Training to teach was fantastic first step into a career I love.
