Primary teaching is something that I have always been interested in, and have always thought I would make a really good teacher. I have always worked with young people and feel that I have had the strongest bond with those under the age of 12. This may be largely because I am of a similar mental age as the children, which I find helps. I love the energy, enthusiasm, creativity and general madness that comes with working with very young children. Recently I was looking for a way that I could build on this love of working with children, and Primary Teaching just screamed out at me!
I thought, for my first post, that it may be helpful for me to outline a little about my back ground, and my future plans. I feel this would be useful for me and is a good starting point for this blog. It will also allow any readers to understand exactly the stage I am at.
I started working with young people when I was 16, and I volunteered for a charity organisation in Edinburgh called Home Start. The charity provided a service for Parents or Guardians who were unable to look after their children for various social reasons. I helped out on days out that the charity organised, and I did a lot of film work with the families when they were producing a film about Home Start. This sparked a real interest in working with children which I later pursued with Macrobert Arts Centre in Stirling.
I started University in Stirling when I turned 17, and I studied European Film and Media. I got a job with the on campus art centre, working as a youth group assistant. This was a fantastic job and it allowed me to couple my passion for the arts with my love of working with young people. I worked in this role for around two years before moving to France as part of my degree.
In France, I taught for an academic year as an English Language assistant at a Lycée (High School) in the outskirts of Paris. This was such a fantastic experience and it had numerous personal benefits. Firstly, I became very confident almost fluent in conversational French, and secondly I got hands on Experience of teaching and leading lessons. I loved working with young people in this formal setting, and I believe this is the route of me wanting to become a teacher. I also made my first film in Paris, and when I returned home managed to secure a lot of film work on the back of people seeing my work.
I worked very closely with the Community Education department at West Lothian council. I worked on a few projects, all with looked after young children, using film as a tool to educate them on the democratic process. This was such a great experience for me and led to me developing both professionally as a Film maker and also as a youth worker.
On returning from France, I started work with Macrobert again, working as a youth group assistant and progressing to Lead Film Mentor. In this role I led the film making youth group, working with various age groups and teaching all stages of the film making process.It was this point that I truly saw first hand the creative potential of young people, and this is something that has inspired me ever since.
When I was working at macrobert, I also worked as Duty Manager and later Sales Manager. As Macrobert was a centre led by it's dedication to the rights of the child, anybody in a management position had to regularly work in all departments. This meant I got the opportunity to work in the Nursery on a regular basis, working with children aged 6 months - 6 years. This was ace, and it was here that I managed to perfect my dinosaur ROAR!!
I am realising now that this blog is going on and on and on...so what I think I am going to do is end things for now and continue tomorrow. This is actually a nice place to end things as that covers my experience up to now. I have been doing a lot recently too since I made the active decision to do the course at Murray house, so that will make for an interesting second post I think.
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