Rukshana

Certified Tutor

I have recently finished my BA hons in Child and Adolescent studies and am currently studying my PGCE as part of my training to be a teacher. I have been working within my current primary school as a teaching assistant/cover teacher for almost 10 years. I have worked in the Early Years sector for 7 of those years, then recently in year 1 and 2. My ambition is to one day have my own class and become a teacher. Personally, I have had a positive experience of working within a primary school and have developed a vast amount of experience over the years.

Having worked at a primary school for the last 8 years I have been able to gain an understanding of both the Early Years and National Curriculum as I have worked in both Key Stage One and Early Years. I currently work in 2 primary schools in year 1, year 2 and reception where I am teaching most of the week. Some of the subjects I teach include both core and non-core subjects such as: English, Maths, Phonics, Science, Art, P.E, History, R.E, Geography, Computing, Reading and Music. While I tutor a broad range of subjects, I am most passionate about Phonics and Maths. I am currently Read Write Inc trained and Soundswrite trained in Phonics.

From upper school, I have been passionate about working with children and hence I chose to undertake my Level 3 diploma in Children and Young People's Workforce. During this course I was volunteering at a nursery working with children aged 3-5 years. I really enjoyed this experience and often spent a lot of time in the pre-school unit where they were being prepared for school. Shortly after this placement, I started volunteering at a primary school where I was working as a volunteer Teaching Assistant (TA) with children aged 4-5 years within the reception class. This experience was a real eye-opener because it allowed me to see the challenges of children starting school. I started off as a student volunteering twice a week and then decided to undertake my degree in Child and Adolescent Studies. Whilst volunteering my setting offered me a job as a TA and I have been working at the school for almost 10 years. In September 2020, I had to step in as class teacher full-time to cover an Early Years teacher who was off sick up until the October half-term. As I was an experienced TA in Early Years, I really enjoyed this experience and felt very confident to teach my class as I had a lot of knowledge of the curriculum and gave me a taste of 'teacher life.'
Throughout my years of working at the school I have covered classes on several occasions. However, throughout lockdown I took on a lot more teaching and was often teaching 5 days a week due to the shortage of staff members. This was a real eye-opener as it allowed me to gain first-hand teaching experience and also see the demands as well as the hard work but also the positives and rewards of teaching. In the last few years I have been working in the Year 1 and 2 class which I found to be a positive change in my experience, as it has expanded my experience even further and developed me as a professional. I learnt a lot from working in the Year 1 classes particularly the difficulty of children adapting from an Early Years setting where it was more play-based into a more structured timetable. One thing I loved about working in the school was how rewarding it was when a child reached a milestone which they had spent a lot of time working towards through one to one interventions and extra support within lessons. I strongly believe that education is essential for a higher quality of life, and I work hard to instill this belief in all of my students.