Why am I here?
Five years ago today I stood in my school hall to collect my GCSE results. Surrounded by my fellow all-girls-grammar school peers (not the most comforting environment - you can only imagine the pressure) and as I read my letter out I was so relieved. Nothing lower than a B and a few A*s sprinkled in too.. I was so happy.
Until I spoke to my friends.
'OMG I only got A*s!!'
'Im so upset, I got two As with my A*s'
'Did you hear that blahblah got 3 Bs? HA! Should have worked harder.'
I was mortified. I worked so hard, tirelessly revising, trying to keep up with my best friends who were naturally uber intelligent and didn't have to try. Photographic memories and pushy parents surrounded me. I did not feel like I belonged in that school, in the environment that myself and my parents worked so hard to put me in 7 years ago. I had the world ahead of me and left primary school with my face in the local paper as one of the 'golden girls of grammar school' (yes this really happened.).
So how on earth did I end up here? 7 years later, hiding my brown envelope of doom under my arm and hurrying my beaming mum out of the hall so I could pretend to be as thrilled as she was. Internally screaming how much I hated myself and how I was NEVER EVER going to step foot in a school again!
Oh how wrong I was eh!
The next two years of sixth form were so tough, I felt like I was trying to redeem myself from my (I now realise to be) brilliant GCSEs to become another Oxbridge graduate of the school.
But nothing felt right.
I didn't want to study Geography at Bristol or read Classics at Durham. What was the point?
What I did want to do was make sure no other child felt the way that I had, just another cog, another statistic, another name on the register. I was - as I have come to learn - the classic, text book, 'unseen child'. Never naughty, never outspoken, not a straight A but never below a C. Just there.
That's why Primary School teaching seemed to be the perfect way for me to actually feel like I was achieving something in my life, for the first time. I would mean something, and not only that, more importantly I could make sure that every child who crossed my path would know their worth. Know how much there is to do and explore in life, how important their little footprint would be on this world. Give them the skills that no one gave me, the ability to hold their head up and recognise that each achievement is one to be celebrated.
Three years of uni and training later, I realise how much more there is to being a teacher, particularly a primary phase teacher. But nothing will stand in my way of making sure every face goes home smiling and looking upwards every single day.
Until I spoke to my friends.
'OMG I only got A*s!!'
'Im so upset, I got two As with my A*s'
'Did you hear that blahblah got 3 Bs? HA! Should have worked harder.'
I was mortified. I worked so hard, tirelessly revising, trying to keep up with my best friends who were naturally uber intelligent and didn't have to try. Photographic memories and pushy parents surrounded me. I did not feel like I belonged in that school, in the environment that myself and my parents worked so hard to put me in 7 years ago. I had the world ahead of me and left primary school with my face in the local paper as one of the 'golden girls of grammar school' (yes this really happened.).
So how on earth did I end up here? 7 years later, hiding my brown envelope of doom under my arm and hurrying my beaming mum out of the hall so I could pretend to be as thrilled as she was. Internally screaming how much I hated myself and how I was NEVER EVER going to step foot in a school again!
Oh how wrong I was eh!
The next two years of sixth form were so tough, I felt like I was trying to redeem myself from my (I now realise to be) brilliant GCSEs to become another Oxbridge graduate of the school.
But nothing felt right.
I didn't want to study Geography at Bristol or read Classics at Durham. What was the point?
What I did want to do was make sure no other child felt the way that I had, just another cog, another statistic, another name on the register. I was - as I have come to learn - the classic, text book, 'unseen child'. Never naughty, never outspoken, not a straight A but never below a C. Just there.
That's why Primary School teaching seemed to be the perfect way for me to actually feel like I was achieving something in my life, for the first time. I would mean something, and not only that, more importantly I could make sure that every child who crossed my path would know their worth. Know how much there is to do and explore in life, how important their little footprint would be on this world. Give them the skills that no one gave me, the ability to hold their head up and recognise that each achievement is one to be celebrated.
Three years of uni and training later, I realise how much more there is to being a teacher, particularly a primary phase teacher. But nothing will stand in my way of making sure every face goes home smiling and looking upwards every single day.
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