A day in the life of anAcademic Manager

She is married to Tom and they have five chidren.

Natalie was brought up in Northern Ireland but moved overseas when she was a child. She has always enjoyed teaching and managing English Language projects and jumped at the opportunity to work with SERC a year and a half ago.

I get up most mornings at 5.45am and will either go to my bootcamp class or for a run. I find this really helps to clear my head and to focus on the day ahead.

I get myself ready for work and make sure all the children ahve everything they need and after the school run I head to work for about 8.30am.

My day really varies depending on what I have scheduled.

I could be meeting people from businesses and organisations, both based locally and further afield. It my job to tailor courses to meet the needs of these organisations. My job includes trying to build up links and identifying the needs of students and employers in terms of English Langauage development.

I might have to meet with companies who want to bring a team over to Northern Ireland to build ther knowledge of the English langauage to take back to their country.

I purely manage the projects and oversee them. I work extensively with the English Langauage team which consists of about 10 - 12 teachers and we will go over areas whichg we feel need developed on our courses as well as creating new projects to deliver.

The courses are designed to quickly develop English language skills for communication in the real world and provide people with the confidence to express themselves in a range of different everyday situations.

The courses take into account each student’s needs, interests and goals in blended student-centred classes.

Lessons cover topics such as daily life, health, family, finding work, entertainment, technology and education. Lessons are taught in an interesting and supportive atmosphere which makes learning motivating, engaging and memorable.

It is such a lovely job as there is so much variety and I get to meet a lot of people from all over the world.

My job is very exciting and challenging and I learn something new every day.

SERC is so open to new ideas and provides a great environmentb to nurture new projects.