Even though many of our graduates will have progressed in their careers since completing a case study, they are still of interest to students who wish to gain an understanding of the world of work.

My main responsibilities are to make Science lessons engaging and interesting and ensure that all pupils make progress in lessons through effective teaching, planning and feedback of work.

I am also a Lead Form Tutor which means that I mentor and coach other members of staff in order to develop their skills when working with students pastorally. My main area of interest and expertise is using student progress and behaviour data to inform and devise action plans to improve outcomes.

Other professional responsibilities include attending further training to develop myself professionally and attending events which represent the school, such as parents and open evenings.

The majority of my day is taken up by interacting with students and teaching. Other parts of the day are used for planning and marking work, with break duties once a week.

I mentor other members of staff in pastoral skills and using data to inform planning. This includes meetings and coaching sessions as well as observing lessons and providing constructive feedback.

My other work related activities include managing and leading Science club and LGBT*Q+ club.

I really enjoy seeing my students make progress and develop both personally and academically. Science lessons have the biggest potential to be fun and engaging. It's really rewarding to see a student leave the classroom understanding a concept despite not knowing it at the start.

Many students at the school are socially and economically deprived which means that they need more support in their learning. Coming from a similar background, I find it rewarding to aid students on their journey and helping them overcome their disadvantages in order to succeed.

The most challenging aspect of my job is managing to fit in the different elements of my role, such as planning, marking, mentoring and managing extracurricular activities. Planning takes up the most time as there are many complex and individual needs of students that must be met with every lesson. Another challenging aspect of my job is managing behaviour of students, as this halts the progress of the lesson and can be quite annoying.

This area of work appealed to me as I am passionate about my specialist subject (Biology) and want to inspire more to take on this passion. Teaching allows me to engage further with my interest, as well as develop my knowledge in Chemistry and Physics. Teaching keeps me on my toes as there is always room for development and gives me plenty of opportunity to further develop myself and my skills.

Despite having a degree in Biochemistry, my subject knowledge in all three disciplines of Science has improved significantly and I am confident teaching all three, despite being a Biology specialist.

University of Leicester (2013-2016) -BSc (Hons) Biochemistry.
University of Sheffield (2016-2017) -PGDE Science (Biology).
Teacher of Science RQT (2017-present).
University of Sheffield (2017-2018) -MA Applied professional students in education.

I see myself progressing down the pastoral side of teaching and eventually becoming a year leader in the near future. In order to progress and develop my skills in Teaching and Learning, I am hoping to undertake a Doctorate in Education.

I would make sure that you do the research before undertaking and teacher training course as teaching is a hard (but very rewarding) career. Be prepared to work hard and put in the late nights/early mornings! There will be times where things go wrong (e.g. The photocopier braking down at 8am in the morning!), but you learn to pick yourself up.

It's hard to survive the first two years, but it becomes easier as you have developed and learned ways to make your job easier.

Overall, teaching is a very rewarding job that has developed me both professionally and personally. The skills I have learned from teaching have applied to all areas of my life and I would really recommend this career to anyone considering it.