Sarah Dyer
Teacher - Year 9 Form - History
I was born just outside Glasgow and lived there for the first part of my childhood, moving to Sandhurst, outside London when I was starting secondary school. I later went to Edinburgh University and graduated with a joint Honours MA Degree in French and European History, with 3 years of Russian.
I came into teaching through Teach First, a graduate scheme which developed out of Teach for America and which aims to place graduates into teaching positions in challenging London schools, and has now expanded to include other cities in the UK. Through Teach First I also completed a short course MBA at the Tanaka Business School, at Imperial College in London during my second year of teaching.
During my four years teaching in London, I worked as part of a closely knit department to develop an interesting and varied History curriculum which moved away from seeing History as a simple ‘reading and writing' subject and focused on involving the pupils more actively in lessons and teaching key, transferable skills; which I have been able to implement here at the British School. I also had the opportunity to lead various trips and involve pupils in both school and extra-curricular projects and hope to establish regular opportunities for the students to continue learning outside of the classroom, and to seek out opportunities for themselves to learn and develop their historical knowledge and skills through a passion for the subject.
In my lessons I try to strike a balance between creating a fun environment in which the pupils can enjoy learning and feel relaxed and able to achieve; and retaining a professional atmosphere in which success and, more importantly, effort are valued.
I have greatly enjoyed being able to create a History department at the British School and look forward to expanding the department to include IB studies in the future.