Meet Jo Lowry, Year 6 Teacher & French lead

   

Tell us about your back story and route to becoming a teacher...

I always wanted to be a journalist. And when I was studying for my Masters in TV Journalism, I went to film a documentary about women and children in Kosovo. Here, I was struck by how desperate the children were to learn, many just had one pencil but were desperate to receive an education.

Throughout my career in journalism, working for Sky News and the BBC, I always worked hard to get the positive side of education into the news. But it wasn’t until my mum gave me a massive nudge, asking when I was going to actually follow my passion and become a teacher that I set about gaining my PGCE. I guess it is in the blood, as my father was an OFSTED inspector and Deputy Head so I saw, every day, how hard teachers worked and how committed they had to be.

I began teaching in Chester and simply fell in love with it. I loved that I could bring many extra things to teaching through the experiences I had had as a journalist, and I developed a special interest in supporting children with special needs.

I took a career break to have my family and during this time explored my interest in the psychology of children and wanted to understand more about how children operate. This culminated in a Masters in Family & Child Psychology (studying in the evening when my two young children would allow!) and then a full Masters in Psychology.

After a period of time working for The Joshua Tree as an educational psychologist, supporting cancer sufferers and bringing them back to the classroom and after welcoming my third little one, I realised that I missed teaching, and this led me to The Firs School where I love the opportunity to piece together my training in psychology and education, helping to make me a better teacher.