Jayne Anderson

I have been a primary school teacher for 16 years. Before having children, I was Phase Leader for Key stage one. I have also taken on various different roles throughout my teaching career, such as computing lead, student lead, PSHE lead and I have been on the literacy team. I have taught at the same school for these 16 years and I now feel ready for a new challenge.

Being Phase Leader for KS1 provided me with many opportunities to work with parents and children in my class but also other classes. I would be their first point of contact if they needed to speak to someone after the class teacher. This meant I built strong relationships with many different families and supported them with a wide range of issues or difficulties. I have experience dealing with families in relation to many things such as parental separation, domestic abuse and medical needs. While I was not a DSL, and did not necessarily have all the information, I have still been a shoulder to cry on for many parents and children. I have worked with social services and other agencies to support these families. I feel this experience would be a strength as I have an understanding of how to support families and which agencies I may need to contact.

Being a phase leader also meant that I had to be extremely organised. I had to arrange meetings with parents, lead pupil progress meetings, attend leadership meetings as well organising assemblies, planning lessons, teaching and having mentor meetings with university students. All this required me to think and plan ahead and also prioritise what was urgent. I pride myself on my organisational skills. I believe this to be a strength of mine.

As part of my class teacher role, I have had to deal with and report many safe guarding concerns. Confidentiality is crucial when dealing with safe guarding and I feel my experience in these situations will be valuable when speaking to parents, staff, children or outside agencies. My knowledge of speaking to children when they disclose a safeguarding concern, means I would be able to support staff and families where needed. I understand not to ask leading questions and to only record what the child has said. My recent training also lends its self to a pastoral role. Within this I looked at adverse childhood experiences and how these can impact a child’s mental, education etc. This course looked at children between the ages of 0-18 and provided strategies that can be used to support children who have suffered ACE’s. This has led to an understanding of why they might be behaving in a certain way which will only benefit me when speaking to outside agencies such as the police or social workers.

I have the experience and knowledge to work with families and support them where necessary. I have also worked with numerous outside agencies so again this is something I feel I can do well. I am keen to learn and develop myself which can be seen with my NPQML and NPQSL qualification. I would be excited for any new training and learning I could participate in. I feel I can use word etc to a good level but this is something I would happily learn more about if I needed to.

Finally, I am committed, passionate and willing to learn. Now I have completed my family I feel it is the perfect time to learn new skills and take on a new role.