My name's Steve Smith.
I'm nearly 35 years old.
I graduated Kingston University from the BSc(Hons) in Geography in 1999 and following it, a couple
of years, making up my mind about exactly where I wanted to go next, I moved on to teaching,
so I went back to university and got my teacher training qualification and became a geography
teacher.
Obviously that's not possible without a foundation, that I got at Kingston University and the
huge range of skills that I learned at the University, not just geography-related but
transferable as well really stood me in good stead for my future career.
So I'd like to talk a bit about some of the skills that I use on a regular basis in my
job, particularly teamwork skills.
I think a geographer is widely renowned as a team player and teamwork is something that
Kingston University focused quite heavily on when I did my undergraduate degree, particularly
whilst out in the field.
I has two fantastic field work experiences when I was in university, one down at the
French Alps to Chamonix and one down to the south coast of the UK to Weymouth and as a
result of both of those pieces of fieldwork, I had to work in teams of people, sometimes
that didn't work particularly well, sometimes teams of people I didn't know very well and
I really became aware of the different things that different people bring to a team.
Some people will be really skilled researchers, some people will be really skilled presenters,
some people will be really skilled independent enquirers, whatever it might be.
And as a result of developing those teamwork skills for assessment purposes whilst at university,
I'm now able to being that into the workplace and look at the various teams of people that
I lead and that I manage here at school now.
So I line manage the maths department, I line manage the PE department, I line manage the
drama department, I line manage the ICT department, I line manage the personal, social and health
education department and all of those people come from very different backgrounds to be
interested in the subjects they teach in the first place and therefore I need to think
about the way I lead them and manage them and work with them in different ways according
to their different skill sets, and really without the development I got at Kingston
University in those areas I would have found that job a lot more difficult to do.
During my time at Kingston we spent a lot of time developing a range of transferable
skills away from specifically geography.
I think perhaps at the time I didn't realise how much I was developing those skills but
on reflection now when I look back to my time during my bachelor's degree, I really learned
a huge amount that I am now able to bring to the workplace.
Probably the most important skill that I learned at Kingston University was presentation skills.
It's something that I use every single day in my work, as a classroom teacher obviously
I've always got at least 30 children sitting in a room, very much like the one we're sat
in now, listening hopefully to what I'm saying and hopefully I'm captivating enough in what
I'm saying that they will want to listen.
As I'm moved on through my career and moved up the hierarchy as it were I deliver a lot
more assemblies than I used to, I deliver a lot training sessions to staff.
So if I'm speaking to 30, 40, 50 staff, last summer for example I gave a keynote speech
to the National School of Leadership in Brighton and 100 aspiring head teachers, I give assemblies
to 200 children and 10 or 20 members of staff, at the end of term I do a whole school assembly
to 1,300 children and 100 members of staff and all of those things I would have found
very daunting up until the point I graduated from my bachelor's at Kingston
The kind of skills that you were able to learn at that point was about engaging the audience,
about holding the floor, moving around while you're talking, about the use of visual aids,
changing your tone of voice, all of the kind of things that I hope I'm doing whist making
this video, but without Kingston University, without the feedback we got from our lecturers,
I don't think I would have been able to develop those skills as much as I have done.
Obviously in the 12, 13 years since I've left Kingston I've honed those skills further still,
but the foundations that I was given during my time at the University were incredibly
important to me in terms of being able to successfully move through my career.
Another thing I'd like to talk about is academia; obviously as a teacher we expected certain
standards of children, particularly at the top end of the school at key stage five, A-level,
and without knowing how to accurately reference an essay or how to structure an essay or how
to use key vocabulary or how to undertake proper research or how to interview people
for a questionnaire survey, all of those skills that I learned through doing it myself and
getting my dissertation finished and getting my essays in on time, even revising for my
exams, I'm now able to use those skills to help the next generation of children to move
through school and to hopefully do well and get great jobs themselves in the future.
As well as that, another skill that I learned a lot about at Kingston uni was managing deadlines.
We were schooled quite heavily in deadline management whilst at university, if a piece
of work is due at midday on a Monday afternoon that's when it had to come in, if it came
after midday you received a maximum of 40% for that piece of work even if it was really
worthy of 100%.
That put the fear of god in us and it made us really think carefully about getting work
done and getting it done on time.
I remember being quite heartily and jovially mocked by friends on my course for trying
to get work in early.
If it was due on the 15th of May I tried to get it done by the 5th because I did not want
it to be late, particularly with the big projects like the dissertation that you do in your
third year.
And I'm really glad about that because now when here I'm at work and the boss, the head
teacher in this large organisation which we are, you know, head teacher of a large organisation,
with 1,300 children, 200 employees if you include teaching staff and support staff,
it's a big deal so if you don't do what you need to do when you need to do it and give
back to the people that need to receive it then you're going to find yourself in trouble.
I'm glad to say I've never found myself in that position but I think that probably as
a result of the work that Kingston University did with us on managing to make sure we met
the deadlines, I've been able to develop and do well in that area.