The impact of teachers on young pupils’ lives cannot be denied; especially the importance of secondary school education is unmeasurable. The skills gained by the young people in secondary education plays an important role on their future and throughout their lives, therefore, as a teacher I am willing to lead them onto their successful and bright future. My initial interest in secondary teaching sparked while volunteering in a Charity school abroad in Africa for children aged 10-18. I found it extremely rewarding to see their success and achievements, knowing that I can guide my students to their bright future has hardened my determination to become a secondary school teacher.

My passion and enthusiasm in young children’s education guided me into teaching. I am currently completing my PGCE teacher training course, which is due to be completed in July 2020. The PGCE course is training me to cover all the National Curriculum subjects; however, my subject specialism is Business Studies and Finance. Throughout my teacher training, I will be completing two different school experiences. In my first placement, I was entitled to a reduced timetable of 11 hours per week, independently taught a broad group of years and sets. Including; years 10 (GCSE), 12 (AS Level Business) and (13 CTEC). My first practice gave me a good understating of the secondary curriculum and effective teaching strategies, in my second placement I aim to improve my teaching practice further by working very hard to achieve my targets and improving my strategies. I received a very positive end of placement report from my first placement at Winchmore Secondary School which demonstrates my development and improvement in teaching.


Every child has different needs and expectations and it is our responsibility as teachers to consider those needs and expectations. Differentiating and meeting different learners’ needs are key to effective teaching. Therefore, in my teaching practice I always differentiated my students and gave them the opportunity to develop their ability, skills, knowledge and understanding further.

During my placement I understood the importance of sharing the learning objectives and success criteria. If students know what is expected from them and what they can do to achieve it, they will focus more on the task and this will improve their concentration and understanding better. Moreover, encouraging students to self and peer assess is a very important assessment technique I used in my placement, this allowed the students to take more responsibility of their work, and learn and share ideas with their peers. Monitoring students’ progress is also very important to help them achieve better. In my placement, I dealt with pupil’s appropriately to help underachieving students by providing intervention sessions and giving regular and constructive feedback.

The school placement improved my knowledge and helped me to become a better teacher, however attending the university sessions and completing assignments has also enabled me to improve my teaching practice. The first assignment I took responsibility to complete was a 5000-word essay which required me to research on an educational theorist and apply the theory in my classroom practice. The theory I decided to apply in my classroom practice was Jerome Bruner’s discovery learning and scaffolding theory. The lesson was on ‘Environmental Issues’ with a GCSE year 10 class. I related my lesson to real life examples such as the current environmental issues Dove is causing, as Bruner believes students learn best when they can relate the theory to real life situations. For scaffolding I broke up the learning into sections and provided a structure for each section. For example, in every part of my lesson I made sure students were clear about the task, I made sure they all understood the key vocabulary, therefore before starting the task I went through the key words. The lesson went very well, hence why I will be using these methods in future lessons alongside with new methods.

Assessing students’ learning is very important, in order to make sure every student leaves the classroom with what they should have learnt. During my placement, I have been able to try different AFL techniques to assess students learning such as; questioning, think-pair-share, traffic lights, thumbs up/down and post-it notes, where students were asked to write down what they have learnt, what they found very easy and what they found very difficult/need more help on.
As a business studies/Finance teacher, being familiar with and using ICT is essential. During university I studied a module called ‘Data Analysis’, which improved my computing skills further. I also attended two different ICT and Computing sessions to enhance my lessons with interactive white boards, the Internet, videos, voice and sound clips, digital cameras, interactive games and work sheets. In my placement schools I have taken part in number of sessions and meetings such as parents’ evening, staff meetings, INSET days and school visits which enabled me to develop my knowledge as a trainee teacher.

During my first placement as part of a study I carried out a research with my group on ‘How to Effectively Work with the EAL Students’. Which improved my knowledge on how to effectively work with and support the EAL students. I have been an EAL student at some point of my life, however with the support of my parents, teachers and friends I did manage to develop and improve my language skills to the full proficiency. Therefore, I believe considering all students, regardless of ability, learning needs, language, ethical origin or any other factors is one of the key roles of a teacher. In my first placement I had chance to work with the EAL department as there was a girl with a minimum level of English and could only speak French, I really enjoyed the feeling of being able to help a student. It was a great experience for me as it helped me to improve my knowledge on how to best support the EAL students in a classroom practice.

Teaching is one of the most challenging but also one of the most important careers. I am very ambitious and enthusiastic in teaching as I am passionate about working with young people and sharing my knowledge with them in the most enjoyable and entertaining way. It would give me great pleasure to play a memorable role in the success of many young lives, and I will welcome the opportunity to discuss this further if requested in the interview.