If there is anyone out there who hates maths, but is missing that golden C that everyone looks for then our last Golden Apple nominee is the kind of teacher you need on your side. Sarah Graham is an outstanding graded teacher, who thrives on engaging students who have switched off to English and Maths throughout their education. She sees this as a challenge and pushes herself to find out about her students so she can treat them as individuals, remove their barriers and get them to achieve. This is reflected in her attendance rates, which are substantially above average attendance rates for Maths and English. Her pass rates for Maths and English are also significantly above average, proving that her teaching style has a positive impact on learners, helping them secure the grades they need to improve their prospects. Having taught at the college for over 6 years, Sarah could choose to work in any school in the country with her grade profile. Maths and English teachers are in short supply as such value is placed on them. Sarah actively chooses to work with the variety of types of learners, from the unemployed, to the disengaged to the learners with serious learning needs. She says that seeing someone finally click with Maths and English, ensuring her lessons are as engaging as they are challenging, is what gives her a reason to get up in the morning. She designs individual learning plans for each learner, spending time to get to know her students so she can get them engaged in the subjects. This academic year Sellafield launched a partnership with Inspira and Lakes College, offering 60 unemployed people the chance to up skill to get the qualifications needed to work on site, including work experience on site. The course was intensive, only 12 weeks, and 100s of people applied for only 60 places. Sarah took part in designing the programme of learning, co-ordinated her learners work experience, and helped short list applicants. They all took an online test as part of their application which told Sarah where they were with the Maths and English. Instead of concentrating on the easy wins, Sarah said she purposefully chose those with the most potential, regardless of their scores. This meant she ended up with a widely ranging level of skills. With a class of 35 to teach, unheard of with such mixed ability, a clear 15 more than the average class size, Sarah felt she could take on the challenge. Her ethos of getting to know her students was key to making sure she got the class through the 3 formal exams at the end of the 12 weeks. Her youngest student was 17 and the oldest was 57, with learning needs ranging from Dyslexia to Asperger’s. She worked hard to keep them engaged and inspired, and this was reflected in some of the amazing feedback she got from her students. She used lively debate and group activities to keep the pace; often finding her students were enjoying the activities so much they passed on lunch breaks. Her longest unemployed student was aged 30 and had been unemployed for 3 years. Since taking part in the programme he has secured employment. To date approx. 17 of the original 60 have gained some kind of employment and all have become more proactive and confident and are actively seeking employment. Remarkably all students in this class of 35 have gone on to achieve their Maths and English grades, some of them in 9 weeks! Following this project Sarah has become involved in a new challenge working alongside Sellafield which entails Sarah helping hundreds of temporary and agency staff to achieve maths & English to enable these individuals to become more employable and secure permanent jobs. She also hopes that the Inspira project will run again next year. Sarah is a special teacher that can engage the hardest to reach students with the 2 subjects that turn people off the soonest. She deserves recognition for all the lives she has directly impacted on and given them the attention and the opportunity that they deserved to achieve their potential.
Posted on: Fri, 10 Oct 2014 13:09:59 +0000
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