Teach-Primary-18.3

Q A & 1 What is your idea of perfect happiness in your job? Working with a great, supportive team and having strong relationships with my class. When everything is going smoothly and you have those lovely moments where you see the learning click, it’s just the best. Having amazing colleagues makes such a difference as well. If you’re in an environment where you feel you can ask for help, share ideas and confide in the people you work with, it makes everything so much easier. 2 What is your greatest fear at work? Realising I haven’t brought any of the resources for a science investigation, turning up to a staff meeting to find out I’mmeant to be leading it, forgetting to fill in a really important form... I have a memory like a sieve, so my greatest fear is just that I’ll have forgotten something I was meant to do. 3 What is your current state of mind? My mind is constantly a whirlwind. I started a job at a new school in September, so I’m still learning how the environment works as well as adjusting to a new job role. I always like to have a few projects on the go, but I have to rein myself in sometimes. I’m constantly thinking of new ideas and things I’d like to try. 7 What do you consider your greatest teaching achievement? I think my greatest achievements have been when I’ve worked hard to build a relationship with a child who has really struggled at the start of autumn term, and I’ve then been able to see them blossom over the school year. Those are the things that really stick with me and make me feel proud to be a teacher. Taking the time to form those relationships early on makes such a difference. 8 What is your most treasured teaching possession? A visualiser to screenshare to a board. Frommodelling handwriting to doing shared writes, demonstrating sketching to showing how to thread a needle, there are so many things you can use them for. I really recommend that you give it a go. Having your own exercise books to model in using the visualiser is a game-changer too. In my new school I don’t currently have a visualiser and I didn’t realise howmuch I’d miss it. 4 What do you consider the most overrated teacher virtue? It sounds odd, but dedication. By that, I mean teachers working themselves into the ground. It’s so easy in education to spend hours honing resources to perfection – writing paragraphs in books, or creating individualised learning booklets – because we think it’s what we need to do. And because we care. I know I’ve spent hours in the past doing all those things and more to try and be the best teacher I possibly could. Realistically, it just leads to burnout. 5 On what occasion do you lie to your class? Honestly, I don’t think I do lie to my class. The only example I can think of is if a child is really excited to tell me a ‘new’ fact, joke or story. I pretend that I haven’t heard it before, so they get the enjoyment of telling it to someone. 6 Which words or phrases do you most overuse with your class? “This is a chance to show off how _____ you are.” Whether it’s in maths, science, art or writing, all children have something that they are particularly good at. It’s our job to help them find out what. Putting their qualities and skills into words helps children to realise where their strengths lie. We take the famous Proust questionnaire and pose eight of its questions to a fellow educator. Take a peek into the deepest depths of a teacher’s soul... NAME: Sarah Farrell JOB ROLE: Assistant head EXTRA INFO: Sarah is the author of Times Tables Ninja (KS2 and KS1 versions) 82 | www.teachwire.net F EATURE S BACK PAGE “Putting their qualities and skills into words helps children to realise where their strengths lie”