Catriona Stewart

Secondary School Science Teacher (Gaelic Medium)

I was born and brought up in Ness on the Isle of Lewis. Like many of the pupils starting school (though I don’t really remember this) I had very little English, Gaelic is my first language. Despite the majority of the pupils and all the teachers being Gaelic speakers, English was the language of my education and eventually my life, that is until I started teaching!

My interests, academically, as I progressed through school, veered towards science so from the Nicholson Institute I went on to the University of Glasgow to study zoology. I didn’t fancy a career in a lab or in a jungle so I decided on teaching. This, I felt, would combine my love of science with my need to be around lots of different and interesting people, which my pupils most certainly are!

Despite Gaelic being my first language, I seemed to have an aversion to speaking it. Over the years it became very rusty indeed. The opportunity arose to do my PGDE with Gaelic in 2004 at Strathclyde University, so I took on the challenge. It was an absolute thrill to reawaken this dormant part of my brain. My Gaelic may have been lost for a while, but it wasn’t forgotten.

My probationary year (like my career in general) wasn’t the norm. Instead of one probationary school, I received three! I was to teach year long in Smithycroft, but spend a couple of days a week from August to Christmas teaching in Parkhill SEN and then switch to Ashcraig SEN. Though I didn’t realise it at the time with the letter in my hand, this was to turn out to be a fabulous opportunity. At that moment, I was more concerned about how wild these kids would be if their school was right next to Barlinnie; out one door and in the other? I had nothing to worry about. They were all fantastic schools with fantastic staff and fantastic pupils. The opportunity to work in three different schools opened my eyes early on to how teaching offers such a variety of experiences.

The very next year Sgoil Ghàidhlig Ghlaschu opened its doors with me at the helm of the science department. This was a year of many new challenges which hadn’t so much as winked at me the year before: setting up a science department from scratch, getting to grips with scientific terminology in Gaelic, translating and most importantly bringing it all together to give the pupils a quality learning experience. It wasn’t easy but it was exciting.

I’m now coming to the end of my third year of teaching. I feel I have learnt more in the last 3 years than I did during my degree. This learning curve (which was so steep at times that I felt I might slip) has lessened slightly. If it starts to level off I know there will be other opportunities to crank it up again. This is a career of life long learning, I’m certain it will never be dull, the pupils will make sure of that!