Name Nicola Hawkins

In what year did you train? 2022-2023

Which subject did you train in? Maths

Which school/s did you train in? Chelmer Valley and Hylands

Can you tell us a bit more about what you are doing now? I am now Head of Maths and Director of STEAM at Chelmer Valley High School, where I trained to teach. I am loving raising the profile of Maths and STEAM subjects at the school and developing these areas to improve the experiences for our students.

Thinking back to your teacher training with Mid Essex ITT, can you share with us about a highlight, fond memory or funny story? I have many fond memories from making great friends on the course. A highlight was us all getting back together at the awards evening and seeing how far we had come.
A funny story would be the science trainees in their subject training session setting off a fire alarm and having a whole school evacuation at the end od heschool day.. and then the alarms wouldnt turn off!

What was teacher training like when you trained? What were the buzzwords, latest theories or popular pedagogy? Most are the current ones!
Cognitive overload, adaptive teaching, hinge point, scaffolding, sequence of learning to name a few!

Thinking back to your teacher training, what was your key takeaway from Mid Essex ITT? Most are the current ones!
Cognitive overload, adaptive teaching, hinge point, scaffolding, sequence of learning to name a few!

Thinking back to your teacher training, is there anyone who supported you whom you would like to recognise or thank? The whole team at Mid Essex were fantastic. In particular, I would like to thank Holly Sutton. Not only was Holly a fantastic course tutor and an unofficial mentor, I also really appreciated her support when I had a very young (and often poorly!) family at home. I really don't know why I decided to train with a 1 and 3 year old at home...!!