Nadia Farooq, Biology and Additional Supports Needs teacher at West Calder High School shares her experience as a teacher…
“I’m Nadia Farooq. I’m a teacher of biology and science at West Calder High School and I’ve been here since August 2021.
“Teaching is always something that I’d kind of thought of but when it came to finishing up university, the opportunity arose for me to join financial services and investment banking. My heart wasn’t in it, to be honest so I thought it was time to make a difference in my life and in the kids’ lives as well.
“No two days are the same. You will meet so many different kids, so many different personalities. It’s lovely, actually, to be able to be able to build some of these relationships with with these kids. And recently, actually, I had to take a week or so off. Then it was so nice when I came back and the kids were like ‘Oh, we missed you miss’. It was nice to know that they actually noticed, ‘She wasn’t here. And definitely knowing that there are kids in here that value me as a teacher, any time I’ve ever had any doubts though they’ve been few and far between about coming into teaching that really takes them away.
“I didn’t feel I was that resilient before I came into this job, nor did I feel that I was hugely patient. But working with some of these kids, especially the ones with additional support needs has taught me a level of resilience and patience that I actually didn’t know that I had. I don’t know who learns more. I think it’s actually me. I’m getting more out of this than the kids even are because they’re teaching me things about myself that I didn’t know were even there.