My Final Year at University

It is now my final year of my four year teaching degree and I would like to share with you some of my experiences and the ‘mixed bag’ of feelings I have at this stage of my course.

Now, where do I start? Those of you that have already been in or are currently in my position will completely understand when I say that the pressure really is mounting! For those of you that will be in my shoes one day, believe me when I say you won’t be able to entirely empathise until you’re there yourself! With the ongoing assignments, subject knowledge files, professional development file, QTS skills tests, dissertation, school visits, planning for the main teaching practice and last of all job applications, it makes me want to wish it all to end! But there’s also the looming thought that when it does all end, I’ll no longer be in the protective and familiar bubble of university. Instead, I will be in a completely new, possibly daunting environment with a class full of 30 children looking to me as their teacher, ‘the one with all the answers!’

This encourages me to pose a vital question to myself, ‘Do I feel ready to take on the job of a primary teacher?’

I can honestly say that in September, at the start of the year, I was terrified that at the same time the following year I would be in charge of a class, by myself, as their only teacher. I didn’t feel ready at all, I began thinking about how I’d managed to get this far and how had I even coped with teaching practice over the last three years! But as soon as I was in school again, I began to feel at home and everything slowly started to fit into place. Looking back at how I conducted myself in school in the first year as well as my confidence in teaching and leading a class, I know I have definitely progressed a great deal since then and in that sense I do feel ready to start my career as a teacher.

I know that many of my peers feel the same as me in that it has come to a point now where all I want to do is teach and have my very own class. However before all that can happen, I need to get through the next few months with the added tension that my future depends on everything that I do in this time!

With any career, there is the worry about finding a job and starting afresh in a new environment. For many of us we will be moving back to our home town which may be difficult to readjust to as people move on and change over the years. Starting to work in a new school is something you would think we’d be used to by now, after 3 or in some cases 4 different school placements. Yet every time before the first visit, I have the same thoughts and anxieties whizzing through my head such as, ‘What will the staff be like?’, ‘How should I greet everyone?’ ‘How formal/informal can I be?’, ‘Will I be welcomed in the staffroom?’, ‘I hope the children aren’t a nightmare!’

The end of my final year also brings my time in Leeds to an end. At the moment I’m coming to realise that I’ve been here for so many years and not seen very much of the city other than the usual student hangouts! Before I leave, I want to be able to see all that is worth seeing in the city, make the most of all that I’ve taken for granted over the last few years as well as spend as much time as I can with the friends that I have made as we are all going to part very soon. This all has to be somehow fitted in around all the studying!

The final hurdle is here and the finishing post is in sight. I leave you with a mixture of happy and sad feelings; memorable, exciting yet sometimes difficult experiences. I wish all of you in my position good luck for these next few months and also for the NQT year which will be another interesting challenge! I hope you all achieve all your goals.

Sonya Shah

January 2006