My Journey as a Teacher, Mentor, and Coach

I Was Never That Clever!

Having worked in administration and customer service roles for a period of ten years, Christine began her journey into teaching in 1987 and accepted her first full-time post with a college for people with disabilities in 1989 and is still there today. The range of disabilities is vast and includes cerebral palsy, epilepsy, autism, and associated learning difficulties. Her role as a teacher has continually changed, over the years, to ensure that her students are being trained in relevant subjects to assist them in gaining employment, according to the needs of the job market, and developing life skills to be able to live more independently. She has mentored other teachers to the highest standards, using innovative methods and creative resources over the last twenty years. She was also invited to work with City & Guilds to create a qualification for desktop publishing. Following an Ofsted report in 2004, which recognised her for good practice, in 2005, Christine was invited to engage with a government initiative to improve the standards in teaching and learning. As an advanced learning coach, she received funding to carry out action research, delivered the Subject Learning Coach Professional Training Programme to teachers in the FE sector, and worked as an educational consultant, facilitating a series of network meetings to teachers nationwide. She was asked to become a director for the Karten Network, which encourages CTEC Centres to share good practices. She has met people who have inspired her throughout her personal journey and wanted to write this book to inspire others to choose a career in teaching to engage learners and make learning fun! She is humbled to work with incredible learners, with a wide range of physical disabilities and associated learning difficulties, and still loves her job as much today as she did over two decades ago.