Why I became a teacher: because I know education changes people's lives

 

Keen to change career, Sandra Reston pursued teaching and discovered a passion for teaching people who had lost faith in education.

I had an horrendous time at school. I deliberately failed my entrance exam at grammar school so I could go to the local comprehensive with my friends. I started off in A stream and ended up in D stream. I was completely disengaged. Everything was too slow, I was bored. I didn't think I was clever and I was told I was stupid. My strongest memory is being caned on my last day at school and being told I would never make anything of myself.
That level of low self-esteem stayed with me for many years. I didn't leave home until I got married and then I ran my own fashion and travel businesses, but I still felt stupid.
I decided to do my A-levels at night school when I in my 20s. It was like Educating Rita really: my husband was totally unsupportive. When my sociology lecturer said I should apply to Durham University my husband made me feel that was completely impractical and basically impossible. So it wasn't until we got divorced that I thought this is the time for me and I did an Open University degree in humanities.
My first year was a star burst. I loved it so much, I couldn't believe what I was learning. The final 18 months of the degree were more difficult because I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It became very complicated fitting in the chemotherapy but I didn't want to stop because I thought I was going to die. I knew I just couldn't die without completing my degree so I struggled on. The treatment worked, I survived and went straight on to do an MA.
At the time, I felt my MA was more valuable than a PGCE but in hindsight I probably should have done one. I knew I wanted to pass on my love of learning and my love of literature. But conventional routes to teaching didn't work for me.
I did some supply teaching in schools but realised I felt more engaged with adults and young people who needed a second chance. I could make more of an impact on them and this was the way teaching career went.
I started working at Wetherby Young Offenders Institution and then went on to Full Sutton High Security Prison. At Wetherby Young Offenders I was teaching 13 to 19 year olds. I was there to teach them humanities but if you can imagine all these kids who are off the wall and use the f word as punctuation, you can understand why what I ended up teaching was life skills. I also spent a lot of time teaching young offenders and adult prisoners how to read and write. Many of my students couldn't read but you can actually learn to read at any age. At Full Sutton the dyslexia rate was 62%. Most of my students were from very fractured backgrounds, some had been homeless or had lived in hostels. Prisons have an incredibly eclectic mix of people and for many of the prisoners on long stretches education was just something to pass the time and relieve the monotony. But some ended up doing degrees with the OU. I taught in prisons for four years, just on an hourly rate so I also worked as a private tutor with individual students mostly in English and sociology and was also an examiner. So it was quite a variety.
When I got my job teaching at Leeds City College I was over the moon. I walked in the first day to a real classroom with real students. It was enormous for me. There's not a day when I don't go into work and think how much I love what I do. For me teaching is theatre. I'm in charge, people are learning from what I know.
My students didn't get their qualifications at school for whatever reason or never really went to school at all, so I can relate to them. Many are very bright. One of our star students last year go 4 A*s and one A in his GCSEs yet he'd failed all his exams at school.
Many of our students have very difficult home lives and have to be really determined to come to college. We have 16 year-old students who are carers, mums who want to get some qualifications and missed out the first time, students who have been disrupted all their lives with enormous personal problems to face alongside trying to get an education. Everyone has their story or a challenge to face and they've decided to get some qualifications. They know it will change their lives and it will also change how they think.
Here at college they have tutors who are great role models. All of us in our team have come into teaching through a number of ways, none of them conventional. We all have real life experiences. We understand what it's like to have to work evenings or be up against flack of someone trying to demoralise you. When you've lived at the financial edge yourself I guess it makes you have different approach – I know you anything is possible rather than thinking nothing is possible.
I think my pupils would say I was tough and demanding but they know they will get results. Our attendance for our access course is 96% which is phenomenal.
I feel so proud of my students. I love them - I just think they're great! They come in with their books, they've done their homework - often for the first time in their lives. When it's results day I'm like a mother hen clucking over her chicks. When my students see what they have achieved it's an amazing moment. They can believe in themselves.
I think it's vital that FE colleges give people a second chance. FE is very different to school. If you walk down the corridor you don't know who is a teacher and who is a pupil as obviously there's no school uniform. It's all first names, there are different relationships. We provide high levels of pastoral support. We are strict, we don't allow lateness, if you miss a session I'll know about it. But being at college is not compulsory.
I'm a huge believer in life long learning. I did my degree because I loved it and at the moment I'm planning taking some short literature courses at Oxford University. I think, in fact I know, education changes lives.
Sandra Reston is curriculum manager at Leeds City College where she manages the ACCESS programme, BTEC science and the Step Up programme.

Thanks to Sandra for sharing her poetry lessons resource, which she developed for her access students at Leeds City College. Sandra has found the resource helps students overcome their fear of poetry, particularly of it being 'high culture' and not for them.