Sally Snooks

Sally Snooks - Honorary Teaching Fellow

My career is now rapidly approaching that 30-year milestone, and my aim is still very much the same, ‘to play a part in developing happy, caring, thoughtful human beings who will feel confident about their abilities and recognise their importance in the world’. I feel passionately that all pupils should be given an equal opportunity to be successful and have strategies to cope with any obstacles that may arise as they mature and learn in our extremely diverse society. To fulfil this, I strongly believe in high quality Initial Teacher Training opportunities and development of enthusiastic, motivated individuals.

For many years I have been part of the Warwick University Team supporting the training and development of individuals that have a passion for education. In my current role as headteacher of Edgewick Primary School, I am lucky enough to be able to offer support in a number of different ways. Each year there are a number of trainees who spend time with us on a placement, as well as those who pop in for a few days to gain experience of a highly diverse setting. I provide coaching and mentoring to these students and upskill my staff to do the same. Historically, I have also provided professional mentoring to students not in my own establishment and been a link tutor/moderation tutor for many years for the PGCE Primary Core. I am able to offer time to the steering committee and suitability panel and have input on the matters that will effect change to ITT for future trainees. In addition to this I have been fortunate enough to provide onsite lectures and seminars on a range of development areas including EAL and assessment.

It is through these opportunities that I have a chance to reflect on ways to improve my own performance and the performance of my school in relation to educational development.

As a serving headteacher, working with Warwick gives me the chance to support trainees in a way that will have an impact on the pupils within our local communities. Nurturing the trainees through their development of skills and ultimately becoming the teaching body schools need to develop our young people.

Long may this continue!