To become a teacher has always been a passion of mine.  When we immigrated to New Zealand almost 12 years ago my husband focussed on his career and reached the goals he set himself.  During this time my daughter was born, and I was a mom and wife.  I now have this amazing opportunity to focus on my future and what I need to do to reach my dream and do what I’m passionate about – which is teaching.

 Being involved in my daughter’s primary school it was great to see how they teach the children from a young age to question things in life, they get taught resilience and through this they become confident learners.  This makes me excited for my journey ahead. If I have learned one thing throughout my life, it is that with dedication, passion, I can achieve greatness. I want to teach this life lesson to my students. I want to show them that their dreams are possible.

  One of my strengths are building good relationships, I can connect with children and their families.  I will involve the parents and grandparents in my lessons.  I’m the teacher who cares about my students, I will be there for them if they need to talk to a teacher, a shoulder to cry on.  In saying this my strength can also be my great weakness as I tend to get too involved in children’s lives – I will try to fix everything and unfortunately, I can’t.

 In saying that the time I do have the children in my classroom I can make a huge impact on their lives and this is my biggest hopes for the children I teach, I want them to think back one day and say: “Mrs Putter taught me I can achieve anything in live I put my mind to through dedication and passion.”After this year I will not conclude my education; I will view my day-to-day experiences with the children in my classroom as an ongoing learning process.  Life is a true learning experience; one must never stop learning.  The fact that I will be entrusted with the lives children is a great responsibility, and I know through hard work and guidance from fellow teachers I will rise to the occasion.