Nick Redmond
“As a young person, I had a difficult family life and left school at the earliest opportunity”, Nick explains. With one O-level in Art, he started as a YTS trainee in a dry cleaners before moving into bar work – where he began to study but found it impossible to fit it in with earning sufficient money to pay the rent.
16 years later, and now married with a young son and working as a train driver, Nick achieved a Level 2 English qualification at night school. Then he started a degree with the Open University in 2001.
Whilst studying for his degree, in 2005 he completed the University of Cambridge’s Certificate in English Language Teaching to Adults and – three years later – he attained a Certificate in Teaching in the Lifelong Learning Sector. In June Nick will complete his PGCE in Post-Compulsory Education with the University of Central Lancashire at Wigan and Leigh College, and has also passed his Level 2 Numeracy exam.
“I’d been working on the railway for 11 years when I finally decided to leave”, says Nick. “When I handed in my notice, I had no job to go to. I started to apply for jobs in various schools and I was surprised at how many schools were interested in me”.
Nick has worked as an exclusion officer/ learning mentor, supporting the learning needs of pupils excluded from school. He has taught ESOL, citizenship, literacy and numeracy to asylum seekers and refugees, and ESOL and basic computers to adults. Nick has since secured a position at Oldham College teaching Train to Gain and Entry to Employment.