GREAT PEOPLE.

We have some amazing staff members at Shipley, Erin is one of our Health & Social Care lecturers and came into teaching from industry! We asked Erin about her route into teaching and why she thinks Shipley is a great place to work:

'I have worked here for 3 years as a Health & Social Care lecturer mainly teaching T level Health and Level 3 Health & Social Care. The lessons for the T Levels are very practical and involve manual handling and role plays. We go out into industry on visits and have professionals coming in to speak to the students. I also do a lot of marking and helping students prepare for exams. 

My favourite part of my job is seeing my students succeed. When they start to understand concepts in the classroom and then go out on placements and can apply what they have learnt in college on placement. 

Before I got into teaching I worked in Health and Social Care as a carer and then moved into dementia support. After this I moved to a care agency and started to train staff there so I taught people who worked in care homes and hospitals. It was kind of a progressive move into teaching, and then I applied for the role as a trainee Health and Social Care teacher here. 

I started here with a degree in sociology and criminology, different health and social care qualifications, an assessor qualification and I had done my level 4 in teaching but I was basically coming straight in from industry. I decided to go this route into teaching because I would get paid a salary alongside training and the college pays for the qualification. I also find that I’m much better when I’m thrown into something so this was great because I was able to get straight on with teaching.

I would definitely recommend people train as an FE teacher, I like the fact that a lot of the students come from different backgrounds and education settings. You have to be really passionate about teaching as it is different but worth it. I still do placement visits so I get to go out into industry and keep up to date with the latest developments.

If you’re wanting to go into teaching this is a great way to do it! The scheme is fantastic, I probably wouldn't have gone into teaching otherwise. The programme was really good, the support we got was fantastic. I taught 4 days a week and then had a day to do my PGCE so I could balance my workload.The course was really good, I really enjoyed it. 

Shipley is a really great place to work, everyone is friendly and supportive!'

Want to join our team of ‘Great People’? See all of our current Shipley College vacancies here.