The man for the job

A new Government campaign is trying to attract more men into the early years sector to remedy the traditional shortfall. Here, nursery teacher Stephen Glen-Lee explains the satisfaction he gets from his job, while students can enter our essay competition by coming up with ideas for ways to make working with young children more appealing to men

Education was a means to an end in our home; my career high was going to work in a supermarket. My dad was a miner in County Durham, and my mum an artist. I was born in 1971 and brought up in the mining new town of Peterlee, at the time of the strikes. It was obvious that there wasn't a huge future in mining.

When I left school I thought that I was made with my supermarket job and car boot stall until one day I was with my friend who was doing work experience at the primary school, and the headteacher encouraged me to become a regular volunteer. I spent a lot of time with the reception class and I loved it. The headteacher then encouraged me to go back to night school and get back into education.

I went to Liverpool Hope University, where I did a BEd specialising in early years and art. I hardly met another man; it was obviously a female-dominated profession! That hasn't changed - with a hundred faces at any in-service day, I am often the only man. At least everyone there knows my name.

My first job was at a new school in Northumberland, where the headteacher handpicked three men to join her staff. I was in Year 1, and another took Year 2, so there was male domination in the early years. I didn't realise how unusual that was at the time. Sadly, both these other men have now left education.

That job confirmed my own philosophy that gender does make a difference to children. I was a positive role model, I was challenging the stereotypes, so boys were taking an interest in literacy and painting instead of exclusively construction and sand play. Girls responded probably just as they would with a female teacher, but boys would see me playing with the girls so were more willing to join in, actively participating in their learning by accessing new experiences.

Feedback from parents is that I do promote a positive effect on their children. I make a difference to fathers too. I've been proactive in encouraging men (parents and grandparents) to come into school on their days off. Now they seem quite happy coming into the classroom. As a father of two children I know just how intimidating that can be.

There are very few men in primary teaching, just 3 per cent - some of us are thinking about forming the 3 per cent club to support each other. I did notice when I started teaching in the nursery that advisors and teachers thought I would need a lot of help, which I accepted gratefully.

For some inexplicable reason, qualified male teachers are not placed with the youngest age groups. When I moved to Bo'ness, Scotland in 1999, I was put with Primary 4, then P4/5 and P6/7 before finally getting the nursery vacancy a year ago. I know my credentials were carefully checked before being offered the job.

I felt it would be a positive step for the school. One of the things that happened when I moved down to the nursery from the top of the school was that parents recognised that it was an educational classroom, not just somewhere to leave the kids for two hours.

Obviously, nationally there are public concerns over child protection, and I am keen to demonstrate that it is safe to have men in the classroom. I displace fear by encouraging my own family - partner and children, grand-mother, mother-in-law, to come along to social events and information evenings so that people can be assured that I am part of a family and a community, just like the men in their families. I am on first-name terms with many of the parents now and I value the support and encouragement that they offer me.

I hugely recommend nursery teaching as a job. It is such a valuable step for parents and children into education, to be encouraged and enabled to be part of the learning process.

I don't like the talk of replacing teachers with senior nursery nurses; we each offer different and important skills to a child's education.

I have always been interested in the different stages of learning, and most of all, what I get out of teaching in the nursery is the ability to influence children at a crucial age. Sometimes when I was teaching older age groups, I would despair that it was all too late. We were sending them off to secondary, and I would lose sleep at the transition. I didn't have a lot of hope for their future.