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Falling in love with Primary Education as a Cardiff Met mature student

Helen Keegan Primary Education Studies student
Helen Keegan Primary Education Studies student

Prior to coming to University, I worked for twelve years as an administrator for Local Government in the Special Educational Needs Department. I met many inspirational people doing extremely valuable roles within education and I always felt that I was sitting on the side-lines. Having seen my eldest daughter go through University and with the encouragement of my family and my manager at the time, I decided it was now or never. If I wanted to teach, I needed to get qualified.

I only visited two universities due to travel time restrictions but enjoyed the Open Day at Cardiff Met so much I knew that Cardiff Met was where I wanted to study and that the BA (Hons) Primary Education Studies was the right course for me.

The first few weeks went by in a blur of happiness at my newfound status as a fully-fledged student. There wasn’t anything too taxing to learn, just getting to know fellow students, learning room locations, getting my head around modules and timetables and more importantly the cafeteria menu! One of my fears prior to starting was that I would be way older than everyone else and I wouldn’t fit in. I am older, but tutors and students alike don’t treat me any differently to any other student and I have a very supportive group of close friends from my seminar group. All the tutors have encouraged and have been very supportive either face to face or via email too.

I can’t pinpoint when things got ‘heavy’, but it seemed suddenly, I was expected to produce some work and not quite the work I had produced many moons ago. My administrative background helped with grammar, but I did find myself questioning if I could do this degree, or was I just kidding myself? Thankfully I kept plodding on and when the first set of marks came in and I was very pleasantly surprised with how well I’d done, and to be ending the first year with 1% off a First Class honours was mind-blowing!

Referencing was a challenge for me, not just the mechanics of referencing, especially because there is a very handy website to help you with that ‘Cite Them Right’, but the fact that you can’t just waffle on at a rate of knots because you need to back it up.

Some of my favourite aspects of the course have been Forest Schools because I really like to be outside. Being shown how to help children get the most out of the outdoors particularly interests me, especially as within the school I currently work at they practice forest school and have an amazing outdoor space.

I have also loved using the school room on campus, it’s a quiet contemplative room full of wonderful children’s books to read. Something I have found challenging is using technology, not really to do assignments but for future teaching. I did however really enjoy learning to use the green screen, it took me right out of my comfort zone but the end result was better than I could’ve imagined.

Being a single Mum and having to cover my first year’s tuition fees myself (long story!), it has been necessary for me to work to support my studies. So I needed to sort my time management out and fast!

The first-year timetable left me with two full days through the week to work and of course weekends. After handing in my notice with the LEA I quickly joined an agency who were really quick to find me some work. I have worked in a few settings from Nursery up to Year 6 and I’ve loved every one of them. On one occasion I was booked to work at a local trauma informed School’s Behaviour unit, and I knew after a couple of days of working there, that was where my heart was. And it must have shown because I have had an ongoing booking there ever since!

This work experience has been invaluable, not just financially but the experiences have helped to make everything I have learnt in lectures and seminars more relevant. I was also able to do one of my assignments on my experiences at this School’s Intervention Unit and how I have learnt new strategies to help children who have ADHD and/or suffered Trauma. I have much more to experience and learn but this is definitely an area I would like to focus on in the future.

, Falling in love with Primary Education as a Cardiff Met mature student, CARDIFF MET BLOG
Working with children who have suffered trauma is where my heart is.

Year two has been a challenge for everyone. With the Covid pandemic, teaching was needed to be moved online. I was lucky to be able to go on campus for the odd seminar but the remote learning whilst not without its challenges, especially with having a son at home, enabled me to adjust my timetable to suit both my home life and work. Online learning was great and we have learnt some new skills as a result, but there is no substitute for that face to face learning experience and I’m looking forward to year three, and having some more time on campus.

I managed to continue to work whilst studying in year two. I was given an amazing opportunity working as a 1:1 with a child with Autism in Reception in a school I love. I have been able to use this experience to feed into my assignments, by giving me the motivation and passion to research further.

I can’t thank my tutors and peers enough for the support I’ve received over the past couple of years. And I am glad I took the leap studying as a mature student, as it wasn’t as scary as I first thought!