WPeople: Alison Wiggins

Alison Wiggins splits her time between working in the UCL Institute of Education on the MA in Education and working in a local secondary school teaching Sociology, Psychology and RE. Soon, she will present at our Teacher CPD conference on what she has learnt about teaching PSHE to secondary school students. We caught up with her to get to know more about her life and her work. 

What does your job involve?

At the moment, I work for the MA in Education. I tutor some students, which means that I help them through the compulsory modules that they are doing and help them with their dissertation project. The majority of my students are international, so I get to know them and help them to settle into living and studying in the UK. Alongside that I teach the Understanding Research module which is an evening module taught over two semesters where the students learn about ways to conduct research and how to evaluate how good research is.

The rest of the time I am the go to person for questions about the MA in Education. I also do some work on the PGCE in Social Sciences and Psychology.

Alongside that I’m a part-time teacher, I teach Sociology, Psychology and RE in a secondary school in London for three days of the week.

You said that you split your time between UCL and working in a school. How do you find the mix of different environments?

It is the most fantastic mix because I’m engaged with education at all different levels. There is also a level of respect that comes with being a teacher who also works at a university. The students at the school know that I’m only with them three days a week and that I don’t spend the other two days at home looking after my cats. Most of the students I teach are about to go to university and I am able to bring a lot of what I do in the university to them, to give them a really holistic perspective. Some of the students even come to see me here at UCL.

I also love it because I can talk about teaching in my PGCE classes knowing that I actually do it as for half of the week. It’s great because the students know that you are living what you are teaching.

Of course, it is also pretty hard as I have to split myself between two jobs but I try to be really strict with myself and make sure that on teaching days I am only doing school work and on UCL days I am only doing university work.

Have you been working like this for a while?

I’ve be doing it for two years now. Before that I taught full time for 8 years. I’m not sure if I’ll ever make the transition to full time university work. I really like doing both. A lot of people think that I’m just trying to get out of school but I promise that’s not true. I am one of those teachers who really loves the job. The work is hard but I never expected it to be anything other than that.

What is your background? What/where did you study?

I went to secondary school in West London and I have to admit that I was pretty naughty. I had really supportive teachers who managed to get me to do my A levels. I was the first person in my family to go to university and I think my mum was pretty confused about why I wanted to do that to myself. She thought I wanted to escape school. I ended up going to university in Surrey and I had a really great time.

When I finished university, I had a degree in Sociology and Psychology and didn’t really know what to do with it. My first job was in the university, working in the admissions service. I worked on Postgraduate Teaching courses, and so was the administrator for a course similar to the one that I now teach on.

I worked there for eight years and really loved it, especially working on the open days and seeing people going come sixth formers to university students. Towards the end of that time, I did a Masters and after that didn’t really know what my next step could be. I thought about teaching adults, as I thought that only adults want to learn about Sociology and Psychology.

That was when one of my friends told me that they had GCSEs in Psychology and Sociology at the school she was teaching at. I’d never heard of anything like that and was intrigued so I went along to one the classes in the school to observe and really enjoyed it. That’s when I decided to become a teacher.

How has your career as a teacher progressed?

I worked at that same school that my friend worked at for a long time and progressed through the ranks, eventually becoming head of department. I was really lucky to still have my contacts at the university and so could keep in touch with what they were doing and use that knowledge to help the students I was working with.

A lot of the students I came across were quite confused about how UCAS works and what it meant to go to university. Some of them didn’t know things that seemed obvious to me, like how you could stay at home and still to university.

At some point I decided to specialise in teaching PSHE, as it’s one of the hardest subjects to teach and often Social Sciences teachers are just supposed to be able to teach it without any formal training. I tried to really engage with the subject and train people and it worked really well as my colleagues and I all became really confident in teaching it.

Looking forward, I am planning to start a PhD in September on the link between the presence of BME teachers in classrooms and BME attainment. Right now, a lot of people are pretty sure that there is a positive link between the two things but most people can’t really say why. I’d like to find out the reason.

Why do you think it’s important for university WP teams to reach out to teachers?

Teachers sometimes become products of the schools that they are in and they very rarely get chance to get out of their school environment. I consider myself lucky because I get to go out and experience a different place two days a week. A lot of teachers don’t get the opportunity to do that.

“I don’t think that students from the WP backgrounds really need special help, they just need someone to acknowledge that there are things available that will make their journey equitable to people from other backgrounds.”

I think it’s important for WP teams to be in touch with teachers because it helps them to see the big picture and understand more about the issues that a lot of their students might be facing. Teachers have the power to overcome some of the difficulties and help their students succeed. I don’t think that students from the WP backgrounds really need special help, they just need someone to acknowledge that there are things available that will make their journey equitable to people from other backgrounds. I just came from a seminar that was all about quality teaching, and one of the most important things actually has nothing to do with the teaching itself. It is to do with valuing your students and understanding where they are coming from.

The engagement that teachers have with WP teams is just one way of making sure that they can really understand their value in allowing students to succeed no matter what their background. It doesn’t take a lot for a teacher to make a huge difference in a student’s life. For me, it was as simple as a teacher asking me if I needed help on my UCAS form when she could tell that I was struggling.

“When I go home at the end of each day, I don’t just need to do my marking; I have to be someone’s social worker and somebody else’s adviser and somebody’s therapist.”

What kind of thing are you planning to talk about at the CPD conference?

I really want to concentrate on the idea of well-being. It’s important to know that teachers today are so much more than just teachers, they are expected to care for their student’s well-being. When I go home at the end of each day, I don’t just need to do my marking; I have to be someone’s social worker and somebody else’s adviser and somebody’s therapist.

PSHE is something that helps student to navigate the world that we live in and help them tackle issues like social media, alcohol and sexual relationships but it’s not being done well enough to be able to make a difference. PSHE is non-statutory, which means there is no training available unless the school provides it. There are no qualifications in teaching PSHE. Every teacher is therefore expected to teach a subject that they are not qualified in. It’s really hard, if you are a maths teacher or a science teacher who is expected to teach sex education. The worst part is that doing it badly can be so damaging to our young people because they have to go out into the world and make decisions based on the knowledge that they have. Sometimes the students don’t have any idea about things as basic as consent.

In the conference, I’m hoping to disseminate the things that I have learnt about teaching PSHE to help all of those teachers who are expected to teach it, but don’t feel confident about what they are doing. I’m hoping that I can help teachers to teach PSHE in a more meaningful way for the students.

If you are interested in attending the Teacher CPD conference, visit our website to find out more. For more information on the support we offer and events we run for teachers and other education professional, see our Teachers and Education Professionals page.