- What do you do?
Life Education provides a range of health and drug education programmes in schools. The three main aspects of my role are helping schools to integrate our programmes into the curriculum; training our educators; and assisting with programme development. My job is varied and that's part of the attraction.
- How did you end up in this role?
I was a teacher for 14 years and a deputy head for five years. However, the role became more managerial and I wanted to have a face-to-face role. One of the appealing aspects of this job is that it brought me back to working directly with young people. I'm still in schools a couple of days a week.
- What challenges do you face?
For the children, each time you deliver has to seem like the first time, so you can't go into automatic mode. Another challenge is maintaining contact with all our educators as they are so spread out. We try to have at least one annual training event for everybody and we've set up an educator web forum to help.
- What makes a good educator?
You need to be able to build a relationship very quickly as you may only have an hour, so you have to be up and running in a couple of minutes. You have to be aware of sensitive issues or disclosures arising around drugs, alcohol and tobacco. You have to learn to pre-empt these issues and build a rapport.
- How is the role developing?
We are looking to expand the programme into areas such as sex and relationships. The skills required are similar but the content will be different. The other big change is that we are looking to give educators more flexibility by introducing modules that will allow them to choose what lessons they deliver.
- What is the best part of the job?
I'm happiest when I'm out of the office and in front of teachers, parents or children. It's amazing how information stays with young people. I've encountered secondary school children who remember lessons from a primary school programme.
