Our people

Laura McInerney

Laura Mcinerney (’06) Politics, Philosophy & Economics, Oxford
Taught Citizenship Stratford School
Now Head of Year, Cardinal Pole RC Secondary School

If I hadn’t have had Teach First available to me I would never have done teaching, because it didn’t have the status that I thought it had, and a PGCE for me would have been too long a programme. I wanted the challenge, I wanted to get my teeth in to it.

For me, the mission of challenging educational disadvantage, you know, through leadership is so important, and I didn’t come from the best education and background, and it was through my persistence and a little bit of luck that I made it to Oxford University. I don’t want anybody else to have to do it through a little bit of luck, that’s not fair, because there are plenty of people who are persistent and just never make it.

Everything at the beginning of teaching is hard. I think you spend hours preparing and hours planning these amazing lessons because you want the students to learn, and then they walk in the door with the attitude that it’s completely okay to ruin everything, because today they don’t feel like it or, you know, they’ve had a really difficult day at home and they just want to take that out on you.

You have to want those students to learn, and no matter what happened to me at the end of that day I thought every single student deserves an education, every single one of the students has to be good underneath, because I believe that people, you know, are good people, and I want them to be able to walk out of the door at the end of the year with whatever grade and whatever skills they need for this life. And, you know, if it takes getting up at 5am for the next year or so, then I’m going to do that.

For me, measuring impact has always been about how a class progresses. Can they go from being this wild, obnoxious bunch of people who you can’t do these things with, to a group of people who at the end of the year are not just able to come in, be respectful, be respectful to anyone else who enters your room, but they know how to learn themselves.

It’s those students that you have had a personal connection with that make you the most proud at the end, and there’s something incredibly special about a student that, you’ve struggled with for two years and who by the end you know you have their respect, you respect them, you know them and they will work for you. And even when everything else is falling apart in their lives they walk in to your classroom, they take their book, they sit down and they’re waiting.

I had a conversation just two days ago with one of my students who I won’t see next year, and he turned around, and I said to him why were you so horrible to me last year, now I look at you now and you’re this proud young man, and I just think what was that about? And he said, Miss, you know, you were new, I didn’t mean it, and we were just testing to see if you care, and on a level, Miss, I know that you do, and you’re now my favourite teacher, and I know that whenever I come here you’re going to teach me something that’s relevant, and I’m going to go out and I’m going to make you proud, Miss. And that moment is just unbelievable. That’s worth every 5am start you have.