Volunteering can help you! I’m James and I teach Maths at a Secondary school. If I’m honest, it doesn’t feel too long ago that I was a pupil myself, albeit at the ‘rival’ school up the road. Like most teenagers, I wasn’t sure what job I wanted to do when I grew up. Several ideas raced through my mind, from chef to police officer, forensic scientist to tree surgeon, but none of them ever felt quite right. It wasn’t until I got to college that the idea of becoming a teacher really started forming. On reflection, Scouting was probably the catalyst that set me on the path to teaching. I had been a youth member for ten years by then. I had also spent the last two years volunteering at my old Cub pack in order to achieve my Duke of Edinburgh’s Awards (bronze, silver and gold). I stayed on at Cubs even after I’d completed the Awards because I really enjoyed it. This voluntary role then steered me into my first job (that wasn’t a paper round). I started working at a holiday play scheme which had been recognised for providing 40
Make The Future Yours! Issue 2
fantastic care for young people with severe additional needs. At college, I soon found myself having to attend interviews fairly frequently, for university applications and for other part time jobs. Were these scary at first? Of course they were, however I quickly learnt a trick. If I could bring up the subject of Scouting and everything I had achieved through it, I could often spend a lot of the interview talking about it! At this point I was clear that teaching was a career I wanted to pursue. On the advice of my college tutors, I successfully applied to do a degree in Forensic Biology. It was reassuring to know that, however far from home my university was, Scouting would still be there, offering me that instant local support network at home and at uni. On completing my degree, I decided to
