Colette AffayaUnited Kingdom
Decades in early years. Now a route into teaching.
Moving from early years into qualified teaching.
- Now
- Working towards qualified teacher status in the UK
- Before
- Just over 24 years in early years education
- Programme
- PgCTL, found while living in the UAE, graduated November 2020
- Next
- A higher level teaching assistant role first, then main teacher
Colette had spent decades in early years education in the UAE, but had no classroom experience and no route into teaching. She finished PgCTL in 2020, moved home to the UK, and is now working towards qualified teacher status through a higher level teaching assistant post.
The only next level.
Colette Affaya has worked in early years education for “probably just over 24 years now”. “I’ve loved absolutely every minute of it,” she says. “And I think the only next level that was for me was to become a teacher.”
She found PgCTL while she was living in the UAE. She is from the UK, and she says she had been told the course was recognised there. “It just seems the best next step,” she says.
Should I continue.
The course was, in her words, “a great, great challenge”. She had spent her career in education, and thinks that helps, compared with “going into it afresh”. What she did not have was time in front of a class. “Not having the experience as in working in the classroom was a great challenge to me,” she says. She was also working through Covid, which she calls “a huge upheaval for a lot of people”.
There were times she questioned the whole thing. “There was times that I thought, why am I doing this course and should I continue doing this course, because it was a huge stress,” she says. She graduated in November 2020. “I’m so happy that I continued and persevered through all the heartache, as they say.” Had anyone asked her seven months earlier whether to enrol, she says, the answer would have been no: “Don’t even go there. It’s just too stressful.”
Home, after 19 years.
Colette moved back to the UK in July, after 19 years away. If anyone had predicted that, she says, she would probably have laughed. “I’m coming back here now with the PgCTL, and my focus now is to become a teacher.”
She is working towards qualified teacher status, and has chosen a gradual route. She plans to take a higher level teaching assistant role in a school first. “I’m going to do that first and then I will gradually work my way up to be the main teacher,” she says. “I’m happy that I’m on my way to becoming a fully fledged teacher, as they say.” Her advice to anyone undecided comes with a condition: “If your mindset is you want to do teaching and you want to make a difference in a child’s life, then go for it.”
Hope you decide to do the course with Suraasa… They will support you and they will do anything that they can to help you.
