0.00.00 My name’s Alan Dodson. I work at George Salter Collegiate Academy in West Bromwich, New West Midlands and my job title is learning gateway manager. I look after a thing called the learning platform which is an online one stop shop for, for staff and students and parents to, to access information and use IT as a teaching tool. I enjoyed school.
0.00.30 I’ve always been musical. I did music all the way through, through primary school, playing the guitar in front of people and performing. And I always had it in mind that that’s what I would do as a job. I went to the Academy in London and I sang for a living for six or seven years. I was out working with BBC prom concerts, that sort of thing, sound tracks for films and for choral societies around the country and
0.01.00 Messiahs at Christmas and operas and local amateur dramatic societies and that sort of thing. My family, I mean they came from a sort of science background. Dad was a chemist, industrial chemist and mum was a lab technician. They both then went into teaching, so, so my background I suppose was, was almost sort of science infused but with, with experience of people who worked in schools and in colleges.
0.01.30 While I was working as a, as a singer I started a day and a half a week in a college of higher education actually teaching prospective teachers how not to lose their voice in front of a class. And I did that for two years and at the end of that or during that time I thought I could do this. And so I retrained as a, as a teacher. Got my first job as a, as a primary teacher in a tiny school where there was me and there was the head.
0.02.00 And there were 33 children in the school and, and from there I moved up through the ranks until about nine years ago when I lost my job. I came to the end of a fixed term contract and just couldn’t, couldn’t get another job. It knocks you back. it is very hard. I had a young family. I’d got a house.
0.02.30 I was having to ring round schools and ask them. I think I had 350 applications in at any one time, all over the world. And of those 350 job applications, I think I had nine interviews. It absolutely destroyed my marriage. I thought I could cope. I probably couldn’t. But because I thought I could, I didn’t tell anyone.
0.03.00 I didn’t tell anyone at all for a number of years. There was a time when I would go home, I would work at work, I would go home from work and I would carry on working. I used to go home, I used to carry on in exactly the same clothes as I’d been working in all day and I’d go home, I get changed, I go do something else, I go for a run, I go for a swim, I go shopping, but I think I’ve got it… I think I’ve got it fairly well sorted now.
0.03.30 I’ve got a cameo role in our school production of Grease at the end of term. There was a time that I didn’t, because I did it for a living, cos I did it all the time, I didn’t listen to music and I didn’t sing for enjoyment. But I’m in Grease now, so I’ve got to get a gold lama suit and an Elvis wig or something like that. It’ll be fun.
0.03.56
Alan Dodson
Alan Dodson
0.00.00 My name’s Alan Dodson. I work at George Salter Collegiate Academy in West Bromwich, New West Midlands and my job title is learning gateway manager. I look after a thing called the learning platform which is an online one stop shop for, for staff and students and parents to, to access information and use IT as a teaching tool. I enjoyed school.
0.00.30 I’ve always been musical. I did music all the way through, through primary school, playing the guitar in front of people and performing. And I always had it in mind that that’s what I would do as a job. I went to the Academy in London and I sang for a living for six or seven years. I was out working with BBC prom concerts, that sort of thing, sound tracks for films and for choral societies around the country and
0.01.00 Messiahs at Christmas and operas and local amateur dramatic societies and that sort of thing. My family, I mean they came from a sort of science background. Dad was a chemist, industrial chemist and mum was a lab technician. They both then went into teaching, so, so my background I suppose was, was almost sort of science infused but with, with experience of people who worked in schools and in colleges.
0.01.30 While I was working as a, as a singer I started a day and a half a week in a college of higher education actually teaching prospective teachers how not to lose their voice in front of a class. And I did that for two years and at the end of that or during that time I thought I could do this. And so I retrained as a, as a teacher. Got my first job as a, as a primary teacher in a tiny school where there was me and there was the head.
0.02.00 And there were 33 children in the school and, and from there I moved up through the ranks until about nine years ago when I lost my job. I came to the end of a fixed term contract and just couldn’t, couldn’t get another job. It knocks you back. it is very hard. I had a young family. I’d got a house.
0.02.30 I was having to ring round schools and ask them. I think I had 350 applications in at any one time, all over the world. And of those 350 job applications, I think I had nine interviews. It absolutely destroyed my marriage. I thought I could cope. I probably couldn’t. But because I thought I could, I didn’t tell anyone.
0.03.00 I didn’t tell anyone at all for a number of years. There was a time when I would go home, I would work at work, I would go home from work and I would carry on working. I used to go home, I used to carry on in exactly the same clothes as I’d been working in all day and I’d go home, I get changed, I go do something else, I go for a run, I go for a swim, I go shopping, but I think I’ve got it… I think I’ve got it fairly well sorted now.
0.03.30 I’ve got a cameo role in our school production of Grease at the end of term. There was a time that I didn’t, because I did it for a living, cos I did it all the time, I didn’t listen to music and I didn’t sing for enjoyment. But I’m in Grease now, so I’ve got to get a gold lama suit and an Elvis wig or something like that. It’ll be fun.
0.03.56
Alan Dodson works at George Salter Collegiate School as the Manager of their IT Learning Platform. He used to be a professional choral singer but switched to primary school teaching. He almost gave up singing but he says I've got a cameo role in our school production of Grease at the end of term... so I've got to get a gold lama suit and an Elvis wig".
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