Kawsar Ahmed

I currently teach in an inner London primary school as Head of Science, year 6 teacher and a Lead Teaching Learning Co-ordinator. Additionally, I hold a postgraduate Masters degree in Education and I completed PSHE Tracker Standards Qualification which enabled me to become a PSHE specialist too.

I am coming towards my fourth year of teaching; however, I have been working in the education setting or with children in different environments for nearly 20 years. My intention has always been to make an impact on children’s academic progress, well-being and other aspects of their life. I have demonstrated this in every step of my career. I believe with all my academic achievement thus so far, practical experience and hunger will provide the perfect ingredients to make an even greater impact through a role with significantly superior responsibilities.

From the moment I completed a phenomenal first year of teaching I was scheduled in to a training plan called the Embedding Formative Assessment programme. It was a two-year training that established me as one of the schools Lead Teaching Learning Co-ordinator. My job role consisted of valuing and promoting the importance of frequent and effective formative assessment by using academic research and teachers understanding. 

Along with other leaders I helped address the complex challenge of changing practice and enabling my colleagues (teachers) to develop and improve how, why and what we assess in class to secure pupil progress. I planned and delivered workshops on a monthly basis over two years. I managed 12 teachers in my learning community. We created a virtue learning space where we shared our experiences and up to date academic journals on AfL. 

They were called ‘Leading Successful Teacher Learning Community’ Workshops. Amongst the 12 teachers in my community, we observed each other numerous times and provided feedback about our AfL strategies. My duties also included managing and booking observations, monitoring action plan sheets, collecting the feedback sheets and filing them. I used the information gathered for the next workshops where we shared a variety of techniques that we attempted since our last session. 

I monitored what techniques teachers planned to use and supported them in providing academic research on it through the virtue learning space. These workshops planned and delivered by me focused on ‘outstanding’ teaching practice and the impact it had in our children. This role allowed me to monitor the quality of teaching across the whole school (including EYFS) in all subjects from the national curriculum. 

In my second year of teaching year 4, I was unexpectedly given the duty to manage and lead the whole of year 4 group, as the other two teachers (three-form) left during the early stages of the academic year. This was a challenging and a substantial step for me as it allowed me to show my leadership skills and develop it further. As the headship team trusted me with this role so earlier on in my career, I was given a variety of responsibilities which included: tasks of dealing with parents for all classes regarding events or issues they may have; all the planning for all the subjects; marking and gathering all the data from the national reading and maths assessments children participated in each term; I planned trips including designing risk assessments; managing all year 4 behaviour during break, lunch, assembly and home-time. I was also responsible for the children taking their Multiplication Tables Check (MTC) set by the government as the purpose of the MTC is to determine whether pupils can fluently recall their multiplication tables. By the end of the year the children produced outstanding results in their MTC and other summative assessments, which indicated I was able to impact their progress significantly. 

This year I was leading the Science curriculum and developing good practice in this core subject.  My first role was to outline and explain the intention, implementation and impact that is expected for science. My second action was to support teachers who do not have the scientific background I have and teachers with a lack of understanding of the implementation aspect of their planning. I met with one teacher from each year group and mapped out the progression of substantive knowledge outlined by the national curriculum. I planned and managed a variety of science exhibitions, museums and events for all children to develop their curiosity and knowledge.