Flashbacks

Yesterday afternoon I attended the first meeting of a local ITT Consortium. Six schools across the city have got together to plan a schedule of additional training events to run alongside our university/core learning sessions, and our placement experiences. We will be meeting each Wednesday afternoon from now until Christmas break, each session with a different focus and based at a different school, all leading up to us submitting a 'job application' and attending a mock interview. Although this sounds completely terrifying, I think it will be a great experience and really useful when it comes to actually having to do these things!

Our first session was at The City of Leicester College, which has recently moved into a new building and I have to say it was absolutely amazing. Completely unreal. I am jealous of the kids that get to study there - it's incredible. It made me really excited to see the other schools in the consortium as the weeks go on. As I walked into the entrance to sign in, one of my old science teachers from secondary school was standing in reception. She recognised me immediately and it was lovely to see her again - I had thought that seeing teachers from my school days, or returning to my old school for a session in a couple of weeks, would make me feel like a 16 year old again, but suddenly felt very old and mature. I felt like a serious adult, embarking on a career in a very serious profession.

As we walked through the school to reach the training room, another flashback from my past appeared - my old drama teacher! She has moved to work at CoL and almost screamed when she saw me. We hugged and I quickly caught her up, and she asked about some of my old school friends. It was so lovely to see these two teachers again and it made me realise the impact they had had on me when I was a teenager. I enjoyed their lessons, enjoyed their company and looked up to them as people I wanted to impress and succeed for. It got me thinking about all the other teachers that left a real impression on me through secondary and sixth form, and how many I would love to go back and visit.

That's when it hit me how real this job is. This isn't a 9-5 office job. This isn't something I can leave behind when I walk out the school doors each afternoon. I'm not only going to be a teacher and have the responsibilities of planning and marking and teaching. I'm going to be working with people - young peoples' emotions. It's a very serious responsibility, and I hope I can be a great role model for the students I work with through the years. I hope that someday someone remembers one of their teachers, Miss Gray, and wants to come back and visit me.