Hey! My name is Megan, and I am a second year Primary Education (3-7 years) student.
For GCSE I studied Geography, Music, French, and Catering because I liked them and was good at them. At college I studied Geography, Psychology, Health and Social Care, and Musical Theatre; these were picked because they were things that I was interested in. I did not really know what I wanted to do at university at the start of college and there were several options that I considered including becoming a professional nanny or a marine and river conservationist (a big difference, I know!), but whatever happened and whatever course I thought about, I always came back to children, either teaching them or looking after them. After much deliberation, I realised that the one thing I really wanted to do was to teach children and inspire them to be what they wanted to be. I chose Primary Education because, after university, I would like to be a primary school teacher, focused on nursery and reception if possible and I knew that to be a teacher I needed a degree.
My favourite aspects of the course are all of the practical activities including experiments and making things in DT. Almost every workshop we are up and about, using resources, doing activities in all of the subject areas, and just having fun. The course is so interesting and hands-on that there is never a dull moment. Another of my favourite aspects is definitely how supportive the tutors are. If you need any help with anything, whether it is academic or personal, you just need to send them an email and they will answer as soon as possible and try and help in any way that they can. They give so much advice throughout the year on assignments and placement so you are never confused. A big part of the course is the placement period, in which we actually receive the opportunity to plan and teach the children and to observe experienced teachers. It is such a great way to gain confidence and to realise that even those who have been teaching for a long time can have a bad day or a bad lesson and those times are just a learning experience for the future.
My advice to a young person who is interested in Primary Education is to get a wide range of experience and a lot of experience, including different types of schools and different year groups. This will be really helpful for when you go to university but also for your years as a teacher because you will gain so many different ideas of resources and behaviour management strategies that work and don’t work. More advice I would give someone is to really get stuck into university, engage with all of the sessions, do all of the practical activities to the best of your ability as it will help you a lot in the future. Another piece of advice would be to start reading well in advance of your assignments and use the references that the teachers give you as they are incredibly helpful and are there to use in your assignments.
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