University of Worcester Primary Newly Qualified Teacher

Jennifer Swain

University of Worcester Primary Newly Qualified Teacher

Question / Response
1. What have been the highlights of your course? / I have to say the highlight of my course was completing my Professional Research in a Specialist Subject. It was thoroughly illuminating to be able to conduct research in school which had been planned and prepared by myself, and then analyse and collate my findings into a final written piece of work. It was an extremely rewarding opportunity to present my interests as such a comprehensive piece of work based on my own empirical evidence.
2.What are you looking forward to in your induction year? / I am looking forward to being a part of a thoroughly supportive team of staff and working towards becoming (hopefully!) a consistently outstanding teacher. I am also looking forward to being able to put all I have learnt at the University of Worcester into practice and really learning what works well for me and my class and what doesn’t.
3.What are you working on at the moment, in preparation for induction? / I have been spending a lot of time at the end of this academic year in school. This has allowed me to get to know their routines and spend time in both the year group I will be teaching and my own class, so I will not be so apprehensive in September. I have been liaising with the Head Teacher, Deputy Head and current Year 3 teacher to ensure I am fully prepared to go ahead and start planning over the Summer for September. (Oh and I have also been buying lots of classroom things: table trays, pencil pots, wooden pegs, lolly-pop sticks, stickers etc.)
4. What are your career aspirations? / In the short term I would like to further establish my own identity as a teacher and spend the year working towards becoming outstanding. In the long term I would like to become a subject coordinator in Computing, or a year/key-stage leader.
5.Is there anything else you’d like to add? / Advice I would give to others when in my current position (about to begin their NQT year in September) would be to spend as much time as you can in your new school. This experience has been thoroughly enlightening and rewarding for me, and has made me even more excited to being my dream career in September!