Nursery World - Case study (3)

* Michelle Hector, 42, who has been a teaching assistant at Altmore Infant School, Newham, for five and a half years, began the Foundation Degree last September. She says, 'Most of us on the course are like-minded. We are in the same position and are working towards a common aim. For various reasons we didn't do a degree first time round, or don't have A-levels or GCSEs, and now we have this chance to better ourselves and we are taking it. 'Working in the classroom and looking at the teacher, I thought I could become a teacher too. I realised I had the practical knowledge, but what I hadn't got was the theory. I felt I needed to be doing something more, but I couldn't just leave my work and go off to a college somewhere to take a degree. I need my pay packet at the end of the week.

'Working in the classroom and looking at the teacher, I thought I could become a teacher too. I realised I had the practical knowledge, but what I hadn't got was the theory. I felt I needed to be doing something more, but I couldn't just leave my work and go off to a college somewhere to take a degree. I need my pay packet at the end of the week.

'This degree course is the way someone in my position can get into the profession. Some youngsters go off to college and get into debt and the pressures get so great they drop out. I could not have done this course when my children were younger as I would have had to pay for childcare.

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