As time goes on, and university pressures mount, I must admit there have been a few occasions that I have asked myself if Teach First is really the right way to go? Would it not be easier to do a conventional PGCE instead? This evening I sat down to work on my Teach First assignment; we have to read a number of different articles, reports, testimonies and reflect on how they relate to teaching, and especially teaching in a Teach First school.

I am now sat here, with tears streaming down my face, fully reminded of why I applied to Teach First.

 

It isn't particularly Luke's grotty living conditions that upset me about this video, what upset me was that a boy, aged 11, has already lost hope. He has already self-diagnosed a future of poverty.
There is no reason why Luke should not be a vet.

Am I idealistic? Possibly. Am I wrong for wanting help children like Luke? Definitely not. 

My Summer Project!

I was about to call this post "A Shamless Plug" but thinking about it, it may be more relevant to My Teaching Story than I first thought...

"I'm raising as much money as possible for Kenyan Orphan Project because all children have a right to health and education."

The Kenyan Orphan Project (KOP) exists to support orphans and vulnerable children in Kenya on issues of health, education and social welfare, fighting poverty, disease, social exclusion and injustice. The charity was founded by Nottingham graduates in 2001 to improve the lives of some of the world’s most impoverished orphans and vulnerable children by providing them with food, education and health care. In the last 12 years, KOP has expanded to other universities and students across the country have been involved in establishing a hospital, a health clinic, two primary and one secondary schools, two community/feeding centres and a support and rehabilitation centre for street children all in the Nyanza province in western Kenya .

KOP’s key objective is to make long-term, sustainable changes to communities, which will benefit them for years to come. Through the projects we undertake whilst we are in Kenya, we are able to make a very real and lasting difference to the lives of so many people whose lives have been destroyed by AIDs. The people we help live in desperate poverty, and struggle on a day to day basis.

  

When I signed up for this project, I didn't particularly think about how this experience would affect my teaching, however, the more I think about it, there are many parallels between the Kenyan Orphan Project and the aims of Teach First. I am not tarring these charities with the same brush, however it is undeniable that both projects that I am involved in have a united goal; that is to stand up to disadvantage and give children, whatever their background may be, the opportunity and the potential to be whatever they want to be, and do whatever they want to do. The crippling circumstances in Kenya cannot be compared to those of the UK; however it is important to realise that children are suffering all over the world; how can we allow this to happen when we have the means to help them. Teach First is all about creating opportunity for young people, and is what I will spend the next two years (attempting!?) to do. As I finish my undergraduate degree and face the world ahead of me, what better way to begin my journey into the world than by recognising, and subsequently helping people who will never get the same opportunities that I have been lucky enough to enjoy. This once in a lifetime opportunity will stay with me forever, and I hope it will have a positive influence on my teaching next year.

So I have taken up the challenge to raise as much money as possible for disadvantaged children in Kenya. We will be fundraising throughout the year, and in August we're going to travel to Kenya for a few weeks, to witness for ourselves exactly how the money we raise is put to use, meet the children who are directly affected by our fundraising, and get involved with projects which will ultimately change these children's lives. 

100% of the money we raise goes directly to Kenya, I am funding the trip myself, and therefore ALL of the money raised will be put straight into the various projects - I have a personal fundraising target of £800, and would be extremely appreciative if you could donate to help this cause! Every penny counts so please, dig deep and donate anything you can afford! One in three children are orphaned as a result of AIDs in Western Kenya, without our help these children are destined to a life of poverty, disease and injustice.

Many of you have already donated and I cannot thank you enough!

Please take the time to visit my JustGiving page, donating is straightforward and secure. http://www.justgiving.com/Danielle-Richards2
You can even donate by text! Just text DARI91 (+the amount you would like to donate) eg. DARI91 £X to 70070! 
  

If you have any questions about my project, please don’t hesitate to contact me, my email address is d.richards@warwick.ac.uk

THANKS!!!

We booked our flights last week, and it is all getting very real!! The scariest realisation was that by the time we jet off for Kenya, not only will I have raised lots of money for an amazing charity, I will have done my final exams, graduated, and completed my summer training for Teach First, when I get back I will have about 10 days to sort my life out before I start my career as Miss Richards. Wow. 2013 is going to be quite a year!!! 

January Blues

So when I intended to start a blog, I didn't account for the ridiculous work load of 4th year getting in my way. I realise I have been a bit slow on the old posting, but will try and keep it up!

During my time at university, whenever I have complained about any work I have do to, there is always a finalist within hearing who shut me up with "You wait until you're in final year", and to be honest I never really believed that my final year would be THAT much different from 1st or 2nd year? Well i'm here, and it is, and unfortunately I have become that condescending finalist!

The question that keeps cropping up is: 'Do I have that much more work to do?" or "Am I just taking it all more seriously this year?" - and to be honest, I think it is a mixture of the two. I only have the same amount of modules as in previous years, and some of my English modules are open to 2nd year students, so it can't be that the modules (in the English department at least) are any harder. What I can only think is that my attitude has changed. I couldn't imagine going to a seminar having not read the book - which we did all the time in 1st and 2nd year, a night in Smack would have taken precedence over finishing the last chapters of a book, and if I could get away with reading an English translation of my German books I would. (Awkward moment when one of my German lecturers stumbles across this - sorry in advance :-)) Not now. It's nearly week three, I have been back at uni for a month now and am yet to have a night out, I have already read 5 novels, some in German, written 10,000 words, done all my seminar homework, attended every class and still have another 5000 word essay to write before everything calms down again. Reality has set it and the end is in sight. Yes we have longer essays to write (5000 instead of 3000), and yes our final language exams are double weighted, and yes the grades I get this year determine what I might do for the rest of my life. But i'm trying not to get too bogged down in it all - after all, they say your years at uni are the ones you'll never forget, and I'm sure once these essays are handed in, the hard work will be forgotten :)

So I guess this is a post, less about teaching, but more about being a finalist at uni - I just hope the old saying 'Hard work pays off' actually comes off this time :)

"Let's eat Grandma!" vs "Let's eat, Grandma!" : Grammar saves lives.

Being a finalist I have LOADS of work to do this Christmas, gone are the days of second year where I would wait until a week before the deadline before even picking an essay question, with utterences of YOLO serving as a justification. No, this year i'm being very grown up and getting my work done, although I don't really have much choice, 15000 words to write and 20 books to read doesn't really give me much time to procrastinate!

Just one of the twenty books to read!!

You'd have thought that me being a final year literature student essay writing would be a doddle by now? Well it is certainly easier than it was, although expectations have also risen. Believe it or not, my biggest problem is grammar and punctuation! Feedback on one of my essays in second year said "Unable to award a higher class due to poor use of English" "You need to sort out your problem with apostrophes" ... awkward. Well since then I have been working hard on my English grammar - my time in Germany teaching it to other people certainly helped, explaining grammar points that I had never seriously considered before helped to clarify them in my own mind, and now, as I sit here monotonously typing day after day I am certainly much more aware of my use of commas, colons and apostrophes.

As part of the 'becoming a teacher' process we have to pass standard numeracy and literacy tests, grammar and punctuation being key topics - I passed these tests a few months ago, no problems at all, so it can't be all that bad? Can it?

I have been recommended a good book on grammar called 'Eats, Shoots and Leaves' by Lynne Truss, so will give that a good read, and hopefully by the time I am stood at the front of the classroom next year I will be the comma queen :) Until fairly recently, my major concern has been memorising German grammar tables, adjective endings and conjugations of verbs; it seems I have somewhat neglected my English! Time to change that!


"It's easy to remember when to use an apostrophe; its use is relatively straight forward."

Right. Back to the essay writing. 

Welcome to the West Midlands!

On Friday it finally happened. After a day of constantly refreshing my email, and getting absolutely no work done, that long-awaited email landed in my inbox. The subject: 'Welcome to the West Midlands'.  First thoughts were a mixture of 'oh, it's not London' ' thank god it's not Yorkshire and the Humber' (Still not entirely sure what the Humber is!) 'and yes! finally I know where i'll be living and teaching for the next 2 years'!

If you've spoken to me at all in the last 6 months you will no doubt have heard that I have been accepted onto the Teach First Leadership Development Programme (LDP for us coolcats)! Maybe you haven't heard of it? Most people I speak to know someone who did Teach First, and they always comment on how they had the best 2 years of their lives! The people you speak to who participated themselves, whilst confirming the amazing-ness of the programme, speak of it as the hardest, most challenging 2 years of their lives which was not without its fair share of tears! I know it's going to be a tough few years, but whoever I speak to, everyone confirms that it is worth it more than 100 times over!

For those of you that don't know, Teach First is a charity organisation with a mission to erradicate educational disadvantage across the UK. For a school to be eligible for partnership with Teach First, at least 50% of pupils must come from the lowest 30% of the IDACI (Income Deprivation Affecting Children Index), prioritising those schools with higher levels of deprivation. Educational disadvantage is a complex, multi-faceted problem but at its heart lies a simple truth: a child born into a less-affluent family is statistically less likely to do well at school. That sad fact will, in turn, mean that their choices and future will be limited in ways that are deep, lasting and unjust.

 I could shower you with statistics about educational disadvantage, here are just a couple for good measure:

• Just 16% of young people eligible for free school meals progress to university, compared with 96% of those from independent schools. 
• 1 in 6 young people leave school not being able to read or write properly. 
• Just 24% of pupils receiving free school meals achieved the benchmark 5 A*-C grades at GCSE, less than half the average rate.

I cringe at newspaper articles which report on Teach First 'parachuting in young teachers to tackle Britain's toughest schools' - Yes we arrive with a mission, and an aim for change, but I'm under no delusion that I know everything about teaching; yes I have had some snippets of experience, but in the grand scale of things that counts for very little. These 2 years will be a steep learning curve for me - and hopefully in return I can make a difference to the lives of the children I teach.

The application process has been a long one, and quite rightly so, but now I have a region and a Teach First hoody I really feel part of the TF Community and am eager to get going! All that is left to do is make sure I get that pesky 2:1, we then have an intensive 6 week course next summer and as of September 2013 I will be a real life actual grown up teacher in a Primary School somewhere in the West Midlands!

So I guess it is here that Miss Richards is born! How exciting and incredibly daunting!!