Fran Box

Head of Learning Support, Dunhurst

B.Ed Southampton, Teachers certificate
Diploma in teaching children with Specific Learning Difficulties (Dip Dyslexia Institute)
Associate Member of the British Dyslexia association (AMBDA)

 

What makes a good teacher at Dunhurst?
One who is adaptable, open to young people, energetic, organised, hardworking and dedicated to the development of the individual.

What are you trying to encourage and instil in your pupils?
I try to encourage my pupils to strive to achieve their best in a number of areas both academic and otherwise. I hope they will become inquisitive and creative individuals with a broad depth of knowledge, that they will have a caring attitude to others, to their community and to their world. I know that learning support students can persevere to overcome difficulties and become confident successful individuals in the end. I seek to create that aspiration within them.

Apart from your teaching role, what else do you get involved with at the school?
I have a pastoral role as a Block 1 tutor and organise tutor group activities such as the annual Block 1 bowling trip. I am part of the Dunhurst one week residential outdoor activity trip to Dartmoor each year. I run a weekly evening activity, currently film club. I encourage children in fund raising. I have taken Jaw and assembly. For a number of years, I acted as stage manager to many Dunhurst plays and helped to create the Dunhurst prop store. I try to play a part in as many of the current school initiatives as possible. My motivation for doing this is to become positively involved with pupils and staff in many and varied areas, In addition to the academic. It is important to demonstrate that staff, as well as pupils, should affirm the central Bedalian philosophy of ‘work of each for weal of all’.

In your opinion, what makes Dunhurst special?
It is the ‘Bedales difference’ for which Badley strove that makes the schools special – the nurturing of the individual and of creative minds. I hope that we can continue to keep our rules to a minimum and that teaching will be approached with an inspiring and imaginative attitude, rather than the slavish following of a narrow syllabus.

What is your best memory of Dunhurst?
My best memories are of the camaraderie of working together with pupils and staff for the good of all - ably demonstrated in the feel good factor achieved by the number of dramatic productions with which I have been involved. It has also been hearing that more than one of my previous learning support students have eventually gained Oxbridge places.

Who or what inspires you?
Old Bedalians who have forged creative and caring careers inspire me, also the majority of present pupils and their parents. They seem to be a band of brave individuals who are prepared to stand out and follow their dreams seeking the different and the individual.

Tell us something not a lot of people know about you.
Although I was not a Dunhurst teacher at the time, I first came to live on the Bedales campus in 1970.