Kathryn Wright
(@kathrynfenlodge), freelance RE Advisor, RE Advisor to the Diocese of Norwich
and Lead Consultant for Teach: RE shares her inspiring #maternityteacher
experience.
I am writing this blog because I passionately believe that parental
leave can be an opportunity for career development and I want to support The
#maternityteacher Project. Let me explain why...
Very few people can probably claim that their career took off
during maternity leave, but this is what happened to me about ten years
ago! In short, this was partly due to
being in the right place at the right time, but also due to the incredible
support of colleagues who saw the opportunities that maternity leave provided
for flexible working from home.
Ten years ago I had a nine-month old baby, and a toddler running
around; I had been an RE Adviser to the London Borough of Newham for a number
of years, but had decided to explore other avenues of work to fit better around
my family and avoid the long daily commute from to London from Cambridgeshire.
A Chance Encounter
During my maternity leave I started to run a toddler group – slightly
out of my comfort zone as I am secondary trained! However, I required some resources to help me,
and whilst searching for these, bumped into an RE Adviser. She suggested that whilst I was on maternity
leave I trained to become a Section 48 (Statutory Inspection of Anglican Schools) Inspector, explaining that I could choose when to undertake inspections so
that the commitments worked around my children. I took her up on this
suggestion and whilst on the training course met another Adviser who told me
they needed a secondary RE specialist to work with schools in Norfolk! My new
‘freelance’ career had begun!
The RE community is strong and vibrant. There is probably some kind of network meeting
taking place every week for teachers. There are similar networking
opportunities for Advisers too, and I decided to pop along to my local group. I
was fortunate that my husband was working shifts, so had the children for the
morning. It was here that I met Mary
Myatt (@MaryMyatt) who at that time was an Adviser in Suffolk. Mary saw the possibilities
and opportunities of my situation and supported me in my early days as a
freelancer by opening doors for project work, and inviting me to events to help
me network with others. She also always understood the constraints of being a
parent, and I never felt pressured.
Flexible Working
Lastly, a number of organisations contacted me during my
maternity leave because they knew I would be based at home. I would have more time to write, apparently!
So I wrote articles; I helped prepare a bid for funding; I wrote material for a
website; I acted as a consultant for a media organisation… many of these
opportunities came about because of the creative thinking of other Advisers in
my field – other Advisers who did not have time to ‘write’ because they were in
schools had the foresight to pass these opportunities on to me.
Opportunities for All
In my work as an Adviser now, there are a number of ways in which
I try to support those on parental leave leave, I think partly due to the way
my own career has developed. One of my roles is as Lead Consultant for the distance-learning
TeachRE Course,
which has many flexible routes and pathways that enable teachers to complete it
remotely – perfect for those on parental leave!
If this sounds like the right CPD opportunity for you, then we’d love to
hear from you!
One of the aims of The #maternityteacher Project is to provide parents with role models by sharing stories like Kathryn's so that teachers on parental leave can explore different options of CPD that are most appropriate for their circumstance. If you have a #maternityteacher or #paternityteacher story, we'd love to feature it on this blog! Get in touch with the #maternityteacher on Twitter - @maternityCPD.
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