Primary SCITT Pen Portrait 2

Louise Partridge

Early Years Teacher – West Row Community Primary School, Suffolk 

After completing my degree in English Literature at Reading University, I took a year out before beginning Primary SCITT. During this time I worked in a local hotel as an assistant restaurant manager and then went travelling for 3 months.

I decided to focus on the early years when training with SCITT as the Foundation Stage phase of education has always excited me; with its emphasis on starting from the children’s own interests and needs and view that learning is cross curricular and open ended. During the year I spent two terms teaching in a Reception class and one in a Year Two class, which to my surprise I really enjoyed!

Therefore, when I began to look for jobs I concentrated on those in Early Years, but also considered posts in Key Stage one.

I went through the Suffolk Pool and was appointed at West Row Community Primary School, a small rural school near Mildenhall, in Spring 2006.

I have both Nursery and Reception aged children in my class and have worked hard with my teaching assistant to introduce a purposeful play-based curriculum into the Foundation Stage. This has been challenging at times, and I took lots of time in my first year to visit Key Practitioners in Suffolk to pick up good ideas to take back to school and use in my own practice.

I have recently been involved in writing for a new LEA document on geography and history in the early years, and as part of a small working party developing the Step-by-Step assessment document in line with the E.Y.F.S.

Teaching can be a challenging and demanding job. However, I continue to find that the rewards it has to offer more than make up for this.

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