At the mo, I’m teaching entry-level functional skills English to adults in a college. I’ve noticed something unusual happening. Every single week, every single one of them is making progress.

No one, except me, is there of their own volition. My adults are there because Job Centre Plus will stop their benefits if they don’t attend. Some are understandably resistant, some are frustrated, some are eager, but during the session everyone contributes. It’s taken me ages to realise what’s going on.

The difference is that these students are placed on the level of qualification that is appropriate in order to build on their existing skills: they can, with the time allowed, have a fair chance of attaining.

Their English skills are spiky. Some struggle to reach an entry 1 in their writing but are reading at level 2. Some write well but lack the confidence to communicate verbally. Most believe that they’re “crap at English”. They’re not.

I want them to get some big confidence wins under their belts from the start. I’ve got an entry 2 student reading Pride and Prejudice at the moment. I set another the task of reading the first 30 pages of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by the end of the holidays. She came back the next day having read 100 pages. Neither had read a book before in their lives.

We’re on a cycle of motivating each other to learn more, to put the work in and to aim higher. And after a prolonged period of just plodding on with my pedagogy, teaching these students has brought my curiosity back to life.

Sarah Simons works in colleges and adult community education in the East Midlands and is the director of UKFEchat. She tweets @MrsSarahSimons