Award-winning NQTs

Five ATL members won the award for outstanding new teacher in the 2009 Teaching Awards. They talk about being a new teacher, coping with the workload and their futures.

Shock and surprise sums up the response of the five ATL members who were named as outstanding new teachers in their regions in the recent Teaching Awards.

“I know it sounds really modest and humble and everyone probably says this, but I really didn’t expect to win,” says Carly Moran, an English teacher at St Saviour’s and St Olave’s secondary school in south London, adding: “It’s a shame there aren’t more opportunities like this for every teacher.”

Chris Gee, now head of geography at Priory Community School, Weston-super-Mare, recalls: “I didn’t really feel like I was doing anything particularly special. There must be other people that do the same things I do.” He believes Priory School should take a lot of the credit. “It’s definitely a school award that I keep very much in my house,” he jokes.

Lee Nicholls, a primary teacher at St Mark’s CE Primary School in Stoke-on-Trent met the news of his success with “a bit of disbelief”, while Lizzie Guinney “felt quite touched, flattered, very honoured and lucky. There’s an awful lot of teachers out there who deserve to win an award”. Now head of geography at The Marist in Ascot, Lizzie is keen to share the accolade with her former colleagues at Farnborough Hill School who supported her. “It was very much a group effort,” she concludes.

Finally, primary teacher Michelle McCarthy says: “To get a thumbs-up from other people is really nice. But there are so many people who deserve it more than me. It definitely gives you a boost; it says you’re doing something right.”

“I didn’t realise the award had given me more confidence until I started this academic year,” says Carly. “Before, I thought: ‘I’m just a teacher and I should just get on with it and learn from the best’, but this year I’ve got priorities for me and for the department. The award is an affirmation for me. It’s the same with the kids; once someone tells you you’re good at something, you strive to be consistent with that.

“As a new teacher, I gave myself a hard time, saying I could have done things better,” she continues. “I know now that I just need to learn to do it differently next time rather than making it a big deal in my head.”

Lee recalls his first time in front of a class. “I was absolutely petrified. I stood there talking and thought: ‘Why am I talking like this? I don’t normally talk like this.’ It took me a while to find my style of teaching. I watched other people and thought: ‘I can do that.’ But you’ve got to teach the way you teach best.”

“Trying to graft someone else’s teaching style on to yours is like trying to graft on a false limb; it just doesn’t work,” Chris believes. “I don’t think you can lie to kids, or at least not for long. It’s hard trying to be someone you’re not. As long as you’ve got their best interests at heart, you can’t go wrong really.

“If students feel successful when they leave a classroom, they’ll feel better when they go back in,” he carries on. “There’s nothing worse than leaving a class feeling more stupid than when you went in. You have to make sure you try and help them get it.”

“Wherever possible I try to relate the lessons to the students’ experience,” Lizzie explains. “It enables them to see the relevance. For example, discussing centralised business districts, we talk about where they shop. Young people are keen to learn and explain the everyday things they see.”

“Think like the child does rather than how a teacher does,” agrees Lee. “It’s never easy because each child is different; they learn in different ways. You can get the quiet children hidden by the loud ones and it’s about reaching them all.”

Carly can relate to this: “I was really one of those boring, quiet kids at school and I think it’s easy to forget about kids like that.”

Carly’s quietness disappeared when she had a job “in the real world” as a personal assistant and complaints manager in the NHS prior to her teacher training. “That helped my confidence grow as I needed to mediate and sometimes speak to aggressive people. I pretended to be confident then and when I started teaching, but now I don’t have to pretend so much.

“I think it was important for me to go and do something else,” she continues. “I had experience of how the public sector works. And simple things like I was IT literate and knew the importance of reception staff — all those things that make a place run, which meant I could focus on teaching without worrying about all that.”

Lee also feels a taste of life outside of teaching benefited him. “When I finished university I didn’t feel I was mature enough to go into teaching, so I got a job at a customer call centre for a bathroom manufacturer, progressed to sales executive and was there for five years. Then I felt ready and saw an advert for the Graduate Teacher Programme. I did that and worked as an unqualified teacher for a year.”

After her brother was paralysed in an accident, Lizzie took a part-time job as a teaching assistant (TA) in a primary school so she could visit him in hospital. She believes being a TA was invaluable as “I’ve got an idea of where my students have come from when they arrive in Year 7. I think I also have a better understanding of the challenges students with special needs face.” Her brother is now a TA and is planning on doing his PGCE.

Another family connection saw Michelle get a job as a TA in the school her brother taught at. “Being a TA helped me massively,” she explains. “It prepared me a bit more, although nothing can prepare you totally for being a teacher. It helped with communicating with the children, with other people, and understanding people’s roles in school. My advice to anyone wanting to be a teacher would be to get some experience and learn whether you enjoy it or not. There’s no point going through all that training if you’re going to hate it.

“It’s not something you enter into lightly,” she concludes. “It’s a lot of hard work to get to the point where you can teach, and teaching is 100 per cent more work than you would believe when you’re training.”

“Knowing when to stop working is a difficult thing,” agrees Lizzie. “There’s always more you can do to be better and you don’t really want to stop because you enjoy it, but you have to otherwise it’s going to affect your health and your private life. You’re a better teacher if you’re relaxed, and you can bring more to your lessons if you have more worldly experience.”

“I think it’s important to be fresh and happy when you come to school,” says Chris. “Doing 12-hour days is not necessarily the best way to be a good teacher. Stress-related illnesses cause some people to leave within three years and I don’t want to be one of them.”

Michelle adds: “What feels like paperwork for its own sake can sometimes taint what otherwise is a great job. It is so nice to come in to work and do something different every day. You could never get bored.”

“No day is the same,” Lizzie concurs. “But I’m spending the day doing what I love, building a relationship with young people and helping them to see that learning can be enjoyable.”

“Watching children pick up something new, embrace it and then go on and use that knowledge in other areas” is what Lee enjoys most about teaching. He explains: “Seeing how they are when they come to you, then giving them skills and knowledge and watching what they do with those skills throughout the year. It’s great looking back and seeing how much they’ve gained in knowledge and self-belief.”

“All my classes have taught me a lot about myself, particularly the weaker sets in terms of my patience and expectations,” says Carly. “The lower sets’ achievements mean as much to me as those of any other. Sometimes I say: ‘I know writing this essay is really boring, but when you’ve finished it you can have a bag of crisps.’ It doesn’t fit in with the healthy eating policy, but I don’t think rewarding them with a pear would be quite as appealing.”

For Carly, an unexpected highlight of teaching is students she doesn’t even teach saying hello in the corridor. “That means I must look friendly and approachable or someone has said something positive about me.”

Chris describes the relationship with the students as vital to behaviour management. “The best behaviour management tool is just to get to know the students — just showing you care or at least being happy to see them.

“It sounds a bit ‘Zen’, but there’s only one person you control in the classroom and that’s you. If you can’t control yourself then you can’t control the class,” he continues. “If you’re going to get mad at every slightest misdemeanour, they’ll pick up on it and they’ll rinse you for it. If you get the consistency — if you’re always the same — it works. I suppose that’s the magic.”

“Working as a complaints manager helped prepare me for behaviour management,” Carly believes. “I’m not confrontational with the students — that wouldn’t work anyway. It’s about making them feel listened to, even if their behaviour is outrageously wrong, but also directed to remedy the situation. Now I’ve reached the stage with most students where we have a mutual understanding. The kids often correct each other.”

“I always find that if I’m fair with the children they’ll show me respect,” believes Lee, who is something of a rarity as he’s the only man working in his school, which he believes gets him a kind of automatic respect from some children that female teachers wouldn’t necessarily get. “I always wanted to go into primary teaching,” he explains. “Secondary scares the living daylights out of me!”

Michelle agrees: “Secondary school kids are scary! They’re all tall and loud and shouty. I think primary school kids know the boundaries better. Fair play to the secondary teachers; I don’t fancy trying it!”

The secondary contingent believe that a supportive working environment is key; Carly extols the virtues of her “fantastic head of department”, while Lizzie reveals her previous role as a gifted and talented coordinator “relied on a lot of people helping me. I was the face of it. I would arrange talks but I needed help in arranging and publicising it.”

“I like the fact you’re given enough free rein to be experimental, but obviously you’re accountable for the choices you make,” says Chris. “It’s been nice to have responsibility thrust upon you. The opportunities are there if you want.

“I can’t imagine doing anything other than teaching,” he continues. “I’d like to be assistant headteacher one day; that would be my ideal role. I’m not cut-throat enough for the top job. Headteachers have to make hard decisions that people won’t like. But I don’t ever want to be in a position where I’m in leadership having never really put in the groundwork.”

“I don’t think you can tell whether you want to be a teacher for life,” says Michelle. “I never thought I wanted to be a teacher and now I’m here. If someone offers me an Oscar-winning acting role then I’d sacrifice my teaching career. But I’d return!”

“I quite like the idea of being an advanced skills teacher,” says Carly. “A good school starts in the classroom; you can have all the policies in the world but you need to have really good or outstanding lessons.”

To those just starting on the road to becoming teachers, the five winners have some words of wisdom from their experiences. 

“The first year of teaching is quite overwhelming — there’s a lot you want to achieve, so you need to prioritise,” Lizzie advocates. “I’m also a big fan of using the student voice. I’d do an anonymous questionnaire about which lessons they enjoyed most and about behaviour management; was it fairly implemented or strict enough?”

“Planning is the most important thing, so you know where you are lesson to lesson,” is Chris’ advice, adding: “When you adopt a class from an established teacher, you can’t see it as borrowing it, it’s got to be yours. Students don’t like change that appears temporary, so if you give them a sense of permanence they will respect you for it.”

“You learn from everyone — a teacher with 25 years’ experience or an NQT — even off the children,” Lee believes. “Be patient and walk before you can run. You’ve got to build your skills up gradually.”

Michelle’s advice is short and sweet: “Just enjoy it and try to have fun. Try not to take it, or yourself, too seriously." 

“You have to fall in love with it,” says Carly. “Even when you’re really tired and things are tough, you remember you’re doing it for the right reasons. Learning how to be a teacher is a really emotional and personal journey. It’s tiring — but it’s the best job in the world.”

This article first appeared in ATL's member magazine Report in January 2010. Read more from Report at www.atl.org.uk/report.