I never wanted to be a teacher.  I wanted to be a doctor - a paediatrician to be specific.  I loved all things medicine and first aid and I was excited to look after sick kids and their families.  Then, in S4 I failed my maths exam which meant that medical school was out of the picture.  Naturally, I was devastated, but thankfully a mixup with work experience meant I had a new career pathway.  After one day in a Primary School I knew that I wanted to be a teacher, so off I went to university and trained with a specialism in primary mathematics.  After I qualified I ended up in a small school that had a deaf pupil.  I’d never realised it before but I had always been surrounded by people who were deaf.  One of my close friends at school was deaf and her mum used British Sign Language (BSL) in the class with her.  Also, when I sang in the Gaelic choir, my Gaelic tutor was deaf.  I’d never thought of these people as different and never really reflected on how their education was different to mine.  During my time at that school, we did teacher training in BSL and I fell in love.  I ended up asking the tutor what the process to become an interpreter was and he pointed me towards becoming a Teacher of Deaf Children and Young Adults (ToD).  At first I was reluctant because I didn’t want to go back to university so soon after having left the first time round.  But the more I thought about it, the more I wanted to do it.  So, I applied and got in, sorted my funding and then suddenly I was a student again!  

As a ToD, you are required to have at least level 1 in BSL.  That is the bare minimum and ToD’s all over the country want it to be increased to level 3 so that they can communicate with deaf children and their families more effectively.  I have been working on my BSL through the University of Edinburgh’s Centre for Open Learning.  I also do private lessons once a week and so far have achieved my level 1 in BSL.  I will be sitting my level 2 exams in June and hopefully by the end of 2026 I will have achieved level 3!  It’s my goal to eventually achieve level 6 which will give me the level of BSL needed to become an interpreter (if I wanted to go down that road).  I love learning BSL and although it’s really hard and frustrating at times too, it’s also so interesting.  That’s why I started the BSL club at school, I wanted to share that excitement and get other people interested in learning the language too.

I am hoping to finish my degree at the end of June and graduate later this year which will make me a qualified ToD.  That means that I’ll be able to work with deaf children all over the country.  I haven’t decided yet when/if I’ll start teaching deaf children full time as I love it so much at Knox.  For now, I am enjoying learning lots and sharing my knowledge with my colleagues and students.

• Miss McNeill