UTS Primary Education
Graduate (Hugh Tomkins): My name is Hugh Tompkins. I work at Newington Linfield and I'm a Learning Enhancement Intern. I want to be a teacher a couple of years before I started studying. I've always loved children. I was coaching Under-Eights at my local rugby team and I was like, this is pretty fun. Seeing how kids learn and seeing how they develop was really, really exciting. And then as soon as I got into the classroom, that's when I realized that this is exactly where I'm meant to be.
Lecturer (Dr Kimberley Pressick-Kilborn): One of the things that UTS students really enjoy is the opportunity to do a professional experience in their very first semester.
Head of Newington College (Benjamin Barrington-Higgs): In terms of the benefits to the student, they get to work in a range of different classrooms and see a range of different practices with a number of different teachers.
Student: I was able to experience a whole bunch of different classes. It also showed me a variety of teaching styles with the different teachers that I had.
Head of Newington College: t's also really fantastic way for a school to really see the best of what UTS has to offer.
Lecturer: Our four-year degree in primary teacher education prepares you to teach all the subjects that you're going to need to teach in a primary school.
Student: a lot of the subjects that I was able to choose and actually study very helpful and insightful into my future teaching career, especially looking at the maths, English, art, and also music. I'm not the most musical or artistic person in this world. However, at UTS it really did help prepare me to teach these two subjects and I do feel confident going into the classroom and teaching them.
Lecturer: Our campus at UTS includes purpose-built contemporary spaces for teaching specialist subjects like music, movement in dance, creative arts and science and technology.
Student: UTS has prepared me through a lot of hands on activities and a lot of the tutors really made the activities that we did real classroom based. So a lot of the assessments that we did work geared towards what happens in the classroom as well as behavior management. As soon as I finished my final placement, I was lucky enough to be offered some casual days teaching here.
Head of Newington College: He did a fantastic job with this, and he was so good. In fact, that we've kept him on as a member of staff.
Student: I'm pretty happy just to walk in and then start teaching and then also very happy to be around teachers. I already know. The one piece of advice I'd give to anyone that's considering teaching is just to be confident in giving it a go. It is a very rewarding and enjoyable career.
