A NEWLY qualified teacher from Basingstoke hopes she has made her mum proud after celebrating becoming fully qualified during a glamorous graduation night.
The award night saw 25 excited teachers, who have all just completed their 10-month teacher training, receive their official certificates at the Bombay Sapphire Distillery in Whitchurch on Thursday, July 7.
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Among them was Basingstoke mother Julia West who has just completed the course and is now a qualified teacher in English.
Julia decided to train as a teacher after telling her mother she wanted to complete her dream of being a teacher.
She said: “I am a career changer I used to have a high-paid job in marketing, but I knew I have always wanted to be a teacher. My mum got really ill and I said to her I was going to train to be a teacher and that’s what I did.
“Now she has sadly passed away, but I know she would be really proud if she was here today and could see what I have achieved.”
Julia said the best part of the job is getting to be a part of children’s lives during their school years where a “lot changes for them” as they grow up and learn.
She added: “I am such a people person and emotive and it is just really amazing to be here today.
“It’s a very rewarding job especially when the children come to you and give you a little card or something to say thank you."
Julia will now carry on teaching at the Everest Community Academy in Basingstoke where she trained and will move on to a new exciting role in pastoral care.
The teachers are this year’s cohort of trainee teachers from The Basingstoke Alliance SCITT’s (BSCITT). BSCITT provides high-quality teacher training and mentoring throughout its one-year training programme.
The director of BSCITT Dr Kelly Richens, who joined the team last year organised the event and said she is proud of every single one of them.
She said: “It is absolutely amazing to be here again today, and it’s been a pleasure to train every one of them. They have come into teaching at a really tough time but we are so pleased to see them come into the profession.
“Schools are a really challenging environment to be in and they have basically learned a whole profession in just 10 months and there really is so much to learn during that time.
"My vision has always been to train happy positive teachers and they are now fully-fledged teachers.
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John Gee who is a teacher mentor of history said he has loved mentoring his trainee Billy Boulton and is exciting to see what’s to come next for him.
He added: The best thing about being a teacher is taking a subject and telling a load of twelve or thirteen-year-olds and knowing that they then understand that subject, which is really rewarding and sometimes they understand it even more than an adult.
“I think it’s so important to have subject teachers and that’s what’s so great about this course.”
The trainees who are now fully qualified will start their early career teaching years (ECTS), which will last for two years. Although they will be on their own in a classroom they will still meet with a mentor once a week.
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