Gosh, it’s been so many years that I cannot even fully recall how I landed into teaching! My vague memory tells me that while growing up, I changed my mind about what I wanted to become as frequently as schools introduce new concepts and then scrap them.

At primary school, I was convinced that I wanted to become a lollipop lady – you know, those super nice, old women that help children to cross the road? Yes, it wasn’t long until I snapped out of that!

During my high school years, I started to develop a real interest in make-up and doing henna art. I used to try my hand at both and would like to think that I was pretty decent at it too. My family and friends always turned to me for a make-over. This gave me a real confidence boost and my family always encouraged me to pursue it further.

Nevertheless, I wasn’t fully convinced with having a creative career like that! As I transitioned into college, I thoroughly enjoyed doing media studies and thought hey, this is what I want to do – teach Media Studies at A-Level.

I’m not quite sure what happened after that because then my focus shifted onto becoming a newsreader! I even did work experience at Islam Channel to get my foot in the door. But guess what? This wasn’t for me either and ha, back I went to the idea of becoming a Media Studies Teacher.

It was for this reason I decided to apply or a Joint Honours degree in Film and Television Studies and English Literature at Brunel University. But that first seminar was a real good eye-opener! They said I had to read a new book every week and while I enjoy reading, I just couldn’t manage analysing big pieces of literature every week and so I had to make that hard decision of switching to Single Honours in Film and TV.

Dropping English Literature meant that I couldn’t pursue my vision of teaching at A-level, so primary was the only alternative option I could fall on. Following that, I took a year to volunteer and gain as much experience as I could in primary schools, before I could apply for my Post-Graduate Certificate in Primary Education (PGCert).

Although primary teaching wasn’t my initial choice of career, but I am so glad it worked out this way because at last, I had found something I thrived in, something that gave me fulfillment. To all my fellow teachers out there, how did you land into teaching? I’d love to read about your experience in the comments section below.