Anita spends a day in the life of a Teacher at Acacia Hall

It’s never easy going first or trying something new is it? And as the first person from our exec team to come and spend the ‘day in a life of’ my brand-new job as a Teacher I had those first-day nerves all over again when I arrived at Acacia Hall on Monday morning.

Those nerves were very quickly put to bed as I met Tamsin and the team at Acacia School who had planned out a packed timetable for the day and as the day unfolded, I was really impressed by how dedicated and innovative the team were in educating our young people.

The first stop was creative arts and the learners were learning all about Picasso, it was wonderful to see how engaged all our learners were but what really struck me was how in tune the team were in adapting and changing their approach to keep the learners engaged with the topic.

Next up I sat in on a transition meeting with parents who were looking to put their trust in us to educate their child. The empathy and understanding which we demonstrated here to build trusted relationships with families happens everyday at Kisimul but to witness this first hand and as a parent too, really got me thinking about how challenging this decision must be and it really shone through how supportive the team were and their ability to balance the different needs of the learners.

At lunch I got to meet more of the team and reflect on the morning and what we can do more of as a business to make a positive impact to everyone. It was time to spend time with the animals (quite possibly my favourite part of the day) what I loved is how the animal husbandry team adapted their everyday activities to make it fun and engaging the learners, developing their life skills.

Later in the afternoon I spent time with three residents who weren’t currently in education but were progressing steadily with the support from our Learning Practitioners in taking their first steps into education, and for me this really highlighted the needs to adapt our curriculum, building further on our Meaningful Life ethos. When I think about our purpose, education plays such a critical role in this foundation but it is when we take this learning from school and apply the context in the home setting, we only really then fully integrate this concept.

I would like to thank Tamsin and the team at Acacia school for welcoming me so warmly this week, I really enjoyed the day and it has given me a lot to think about. We will share more details about the next ‘Day in the life of’ very soon.

Anita