After completing an undergraduate degree in English literature at the University of Sheffield, I moved back to Cheshire (where my family are) to study for a PGCE at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2007.
I was newly married and my husband had just left teaching. His new career was more geographically limiting so when he got a job in Essex, I started looking for jobs there.
Looking to the future
A few years into teaching, I started to consider my future. I was concerned that the school I was in was limiting; there was little behavioural challenge and little experience in terms of disadvantaged children, special educational needs and disabilty and English as an additional language. I started looking at other jobs but was also contemplating starting a family.
Soon after, I found out that I was pregnant and so stayed where I was and took a year’s maternity leave. During that year, we decided that living near London was not as much fun with a baby and we would like to be nearer to family in the North West.
Seven years on, having taken a couple of short-term roles in the North West, I saw an advert for a second in department and literacy coordinator at Stockport Academy – exactly the next step I was looking for.
A new life in the North West
Stockport itself is a big town on the outskirts of Manchester and I love that we enjoy the benefits of the city as well as being very close to the Peak District. There is often a misconception that the North is more countryside than city but that's not really the case. I live in a very urban area, but it’s not too far from some very beautiful parts of the country.
I definitely noticed a slower pace at first in the area; a lot of my non-teacher friends in London didn’t get home from their city jobs until eight at night so socialising happened later. And once we had a kid, things changed. We lived in a very friendly community in Essex, but we missed the general chat that is more common in the North.
I am a big advocate for Stockport and the North West; there are a lot of new things happening and developments taking place in the town. It’s a lovely place and I would absolutely recommend living and working here.