Claire

I have worked in teaching for over 10 years now across a variety of schools and have a proven track record with helping children grow and learn. I am a mother of a 6 year old and although I have mostly taught in key stage two, this plus my experience as a deputy and SENDco have allowed me to develop expertise in developing both phonics, early reading and early maths skills.
I have been in the area for a couple of years now and have recently decided to step back from teaching full time to spend more time with my family and tutoring offers me the perfect opportunity to do this.

Tutoring Experience

Since qualifying in 2009, I have had a continually evolving role that has involved a wide variety of activities, from running sports clubs, leading school council, introducing E-Safety initiatives and leading computing, mentoring an unqualified teacher through her training and running and organising a year group. As well as being a year 5 or 6 classroom teacher. In the last two years, I have also lead maths across the school, KS2 and most recently taken on the role of Deputy Head, DSL and acting SENDCo. I have thoroughly enjoyed and embraced as many aspects of the job as possible and pride myself in always being willing to learn and open to new opportunities and challenges.
Over the last 10 years, I have taught classes in year 3, year 5 and year 6 as well as providing intervention teaching to children in years 4, 5 and 6. The children within these classes had a huge variety of abilities, ranging from children who were working way below their age expectation to children who are already achieving Level 6’s and Greater Depth. Although I have only taught full time, in upper key stage two, I feel that I the range of abilities I have taught has given me the opportunity to gain a competent and full understanding of the national curriculum as I am able to tailor it to be both imaginative and differentiated in order to provide for all my children’s needs, whether these be in supporting them or extending them. Additionally, I have tailored established schemes of work to suit the individual needs of the children that I teach. In this, I have produced lesson ideas which have gone on to be used by other teachers. I have also adapted my teaching to meet the needs of the new curriculum. This has led to me gaining a thorough understanding of both the requirements of the curriculum and the expectations of the end of year government tests. I feel that I was able to achieve this successfully with 100% of my children making good to outstanding progress and them all achieving their end of year targets.

I like my enthusiasm as a teacher to be reflected in pupils’ enthusiasm for learning. In order to ensure children get full enjoyment out of their learning experience, I understand the importance of using and maintaining a range of resources as well as producing new resources where appropriate.

I have gained experience in teaching children with special educational needs and have provided appropriate activities alongside writing individual education plans for children within the classes I have taught. Through scrutinising assessment data, I am able to plan lessons for groups of children who are underachieving and require intervention in order to bridge the learning gap in their skills, knowledge and understanding. I have worked closely with other teachers, the regional SENCO, speech and language team, the educational psychologist and other external agencies and the learning support assistants who run these groups to ensure the work is appropriate to the children’s needs and that in each session progress is able to be achieved. I also, built strong links with the families and external agencies to ensure that everyone was kept up-to-date on the needs of the individual child and how they were being met. By using the external agency reports and my knowledge of the children, I was able to create a provision map that ensured all pupils were receiving appropriate provision that supported the EHCP application process where appropriate.
During my career, I was also relied upon to mentor unqualified teachers and NQT’s. This included meeting regularly to talk through assessment, target setting, marking, planning, creating toolkits and strategies for managing behaviour. This role also included me observing and providing constructive feedback and assisting them with creating a portfolio. As well as this, I have also supported other members of staff new to a year group in ensuring their pitch and expectations were correct for the demands of the year group. In order to do this, I would regularly look at planning and lesson resources with them as well as talk through marking and feedback to ensure the children’s learning was directed appropriately. I have also worked with other teachers that are new to middle leadership and specifically the role of computing and have guided and supported them in leading the subject successfully across their own school.
I believe that it is important to be aware of the development of the whole child both within and outside traditional classroom settings as it is a good way to foster and develop the young mind. I believe it is vitally important that children are given every opportunity to experience real life situations. At my previous school, I set up a link with a local hotel and the following year I brought in a variety of professionals to talk to the children about how what they do now can affect their future goals. With this I fully endorse the Ofsted broad and balanced curriculum model, as by encouraging these broader educational experiences can only benefit the child and further engage them in all areas of learning. While at my current school, I have been part of the leadership team and taken part in creating the intent, ensuring successful implementation and then measuring the impact of the curriculum across the school

Tutoring Approach

I believe that teaching at any level is as much about developing the confidence and self esteem of the child as well as them gaining the skills to complete the required task. I use a range of strategies and techniques to do this as i am fully aware that every child is different and needs to learn in a different way. I take a positive supportive approach to the work i do with any child; building positive relationships is key.