Last October, I was terrified at the prospect of standing in front of 30 adolescents. I had no experience of what secondary schools were like and I was worried that my subject knowledge wouldn’t be up to scratch. However, my fear turned to elation the first time a pupil uttered the word “Miss”.

As a child, my mother used to worry that I was becoming obsessed with school when she found a neatly stacked pile of handwritten worksheets on my bookshelf complete with a home-made register. I arrived at school early so that I could tidy the teacher’s desk and wipe the blackboard. My enthusiasm for school life continued throughout my teenage years and when I left secondary school I cried all the way home.

The PGCE has been hard work but I have enjoyed every minute of it. Even after sitting in the staffroom listening to the horror stories from staff who give me that “look” when I say how passionate I am about teaching. Maybe I am a geek who admired her teachers so much she spent the first 30 years of her life building up to becoming one. But how could I forget the Year 8 class who discussed my dress sense during period five, the Year 9 boy who climbed out of the window during a lesson on frequency polygons, or the Year 7 boy who did a commando roll into my observed lesson?

I lie awake at night dreaming about how I will arrange the desks in my classroom. I ponder over breakfast as to whether or not I should buy a plant for my desk. Even wandering around the supermarket, I squeal with delight as I find the perfect size stacking boxes to store exercise books in. Now I am at my desk looking out of my window with a huge grin on my face. I truly hope my passion for teaching lasts for the next 30 years, but for now, this is all I have ever want **

Melissa Jones is a new teacher in Blackpool

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