From a very early age, I knew I wanted to be a teacher. I distinctly remember at the age of 8 being asked by a primary teacher if I had any dreams for the future and, after some consideration, I told her that I would like to work in a school as a teacher. It was probably not the answer she was expecting, though I meant every word of it.

Due to this ambition, I studied hard throughout my life, making sure that I found subjects that I was passionate about. It became clear to me very early on that I excelled in English due to a love of literature and poetry, but also due to the communication and thought provoking ideas that any English lesson can and should provide to eager learners.

After leaving my secondary school in Wells, Somerset I was lucky enough to attend Bath Spa University where I took my studies of English further, focusing mainly on Early Modern Plays (Shakespeare, Middleton and Decker), Romantic Poetry (Keats, Wordsworth and Pope) and Gothic Victorian authors (Shelly, Le Fanu, Stevenson and Stoker), though it is worth mentioning that my studies were not limited to only these three aspects, and I have been lucky enough to have studied almost every area of the English canon.

After graduating from Bath Spa, I worked for a short while at ICS in Zurich where I took my first steps as a teacher. This allowed me to attend the prestigious Edge Hill University which is often cited as one of the top teacher training universities that England has to offer. I graduated from there with their highest honors possible, an achievement I am exceptionally proud of to this day.

Before I came to Avenor, I was part of an exceptional English team at Knowsley Community College in Liverpool, it was there that I honed my skills alongside an incredible array of colleagues for five teaching years. The students at Knowsley presented a specific set of challenges for any teacher, though the reward of seeing them succeed when others had said they might not made me realise that teaching is arguably the most rewarding job in the world.

Now that I am at Avenor, I hope to progress my career even further with a whole new challenge. I feel that my ability to identify every student’s individual needs and talents will allow me to assist them in becoming the men and women that they want to be. Through their study of English I hope that they will learn how to communicate in a variety of ways, to gain an understanding of texts both fiction and non-fiction and to improve upon their written skills to ensure that they leave Avenor with the skills necessary to live a successful and fulfilling life.