Provide answers and feedback on these concerns

Why did you decide to become a teacher?

Data excerpt 1: ... as a person I’m quite outgoing, I’m quite a confident person and I think

my communication skills are one of my strengths as are my facilitation and group working

skills, and so really, yeah, I thought from quite an early age that I’d be a candidate who

would make a successful teacher. I thought after I finish my degree I’ll apply for some jobs in

advertising and didn’t really get anywhere, it’s a real tough graduate job so it’s very hard and

in the end I’d already applied for this [PGCE] as my fallback and so I did this in the end

because I couldn’t get a job in advertising. Sounds awful but yeah. I did work experience in a

school, voluntary, I went in half a day a week and I just loved it so I knew it was the right

thing for me really. It’s nice to be part of people’s growing up. I look back at my teachers and

I still remember the ones that I loved at primary school. I remember the impact they made on

my life... I’d like to be able to give that to children, that sort of enjoyment and the amount of

pleasure I got out of it... I’d love to think that fifteen years down the line somebody would

say that about me.

Data excerpt 2: Coming from the family that I come from we’ve got a lot of children

around us so I’ve grown up with lots of children and being the oldest as well helped my

brothers and sisters learn. So I’ve always been being a teacher. It’s all I want to do really, just

be a teacher... I knew from day one, I had applied for teaching as soon as I left school. I’d

always wanted to be a teacher. Because I speak different languages, I speak Urdu, Arabic,

Farsi, French and English, I can see things from a different perspective sometimes. Certain

people might think that a child doesn’t do that properly, but I sometimes see what they’re

doing because I can see it from here and from here and I can put that across... so I knew I

could bring certain things into the teaching profession. My secondary education was very

much ‘ you will listen to the teacher and you will learn from the teacher�. I don’t think

that’s the case. I think children learn from each other. I’m a facilitator rather than a person

who’s going to stand up in front of the blackboard six hours a day. I’ve done lots of voluntary

work with children and when I was doing my degree I did a lot of work with children and I

did really enjoy it. I do have three small children and that did have an impact in my choice

because you do sort of imagine that a career in teaching will fit in with family life more

conveniently

Data excerpt 3: I’m a big kid at heart and I thought if I become a teacher I’ll try really

hard to do things that are entertaining because I know how boring [school] can be. I hated

school. I was expelled from school twice. That might be another reason that I went into

teaching, the idea of going back and doing it better. I’ve grown up around teachers, you

know, arguments about teaching over the Christmas dinner table, that really put me off in

those days, but now I’ve worked for ten years and I’ve got a different perspective on it. I

swore blind I’d never do it but ten years on, your life changes. I’ve worked all my life. I was

in banking for over 10 years, then I went into HR [Human Resources] through banking, and

got made redundant twice in a year. And I just thought, OK seeing as I am not working

anyway, I may as well go into teaching. [I visited a school] and the fact my brain was

bubbling with ideas of how to cope with things said to me that it would be quite a nice job to

do creatively. It would be an outlet for my creative side which banking and HR hasn’t given

me. I have children of my own and the school year helps. I’m not going to have to think

‘ what am I going to do for six weeks in the summer?’ I am going to be able to spend time

with my own children as well.

Data excerpt 4: I worked abroad in French speaking countries, I speak fluent French and I

saw the drive to get primary schools having foreign languages. That was something I really

wanted to be a part of. It was really contributing rather than just making profits, which was a

big factor and I’ve got three young children so family and work / life balance was a big issue

and really that was more important than money... I’d earn a bit less but I’d get a good balance

on that. And interest. I was sort of groaning about my old job. It was too easy and a bit boring

and I relished the idea of getting my brain going again... So it was interests as well, and

stimulation... I couldn’t do with just sitting in front of a computer, I needed to be on my feet,

moving around, interacting, the whole of stimulation of that really.

Data excerpt 5: When I started working as a support assistant in schools with children

who didn’t really speak English, I would tell them a story or show them pictures in a book to

talk about, just to see a spark, and I thought I want the knowledge, I want something more, I

want to be able to give them more. And I got to the point with being a support assistant that it

wasn’t enough, it’s not very good pay, and I was on the maximum which was £8k and you

can’t buy a house or get a mortgage on that.