Once I started to seriously think about a career change into teaching, my first thought was to try primary school teaching as the one thing that scared the life out of me was secondary schools, well more so teenagers, groups of teenagers!!!!

Yes I have 2 teenagers of my own that are great. They can hold a conversation and don’t get too moody, and on occasions have been known to be good company 😂

But I believe my fear has been bred from the media, they paint a horrendous picture of our young people and to my shame I had been sucked in. They tell of how schools are violent places, with constant acts of abuse both verbal and physical against teachers and each other.

With this in mind I spent the day in a primary school with a group of year 6’s. Well you know that feeling when you know you have made a horrible mistake, that was me.

I left at the end of the day feeling very low and was ready to put the whole teaching thing behind me.

My other half sat with me and we talked about what I really loved and it’s science but I had already written off teaching in secondary schools due to the misguided view I held.

I contacted my local SCITT whom I had met previously at a teaching event and had a chat about spending the day in a local secondary school to ‘test the water’.

I was so nervous heading in but that soon disappeared once I met the team. I was spending the day in the science department, following the biology teachers and observing a class in each year group.

All I can say is to spend the day laughing and talking about science (something I love) was and is my idea of a heaven.

I was encouraged to join in and help out in every class and my preconceptions were soon blown out of the water.

My mind was made up, Secondary science was for me and today’s young people are intelligent and fun.