PROFILE – VIVIENNE WARWICK
Vivienne has taught at Judgemeadow Community College for the last 38 years, so that’s virtually all her teaching career except for a year and a term at Beaumont Leys.
When she started at Judgemeadow the school had just 200 students but when she left last summer there were over 1,200 students.
Vivenne loves teaching, loves her subject and loves enabling others. She says, “I have been so fortunate to have had the opportunity to develop syllabuses and schemes of work in art and design that have excited the students. When students are eager to get started and don’t want to pack up and go at the end of the session, then teaching is the best job in the world and there’s never a good time to leave.”
Vivienne has also worked with three fantastic headteachers and had opportunities through her work as a moderator for OCR (Oxford/Cambridge and RSA awarding body) and GCSE (General Certificate of Secondary Education) to visit many other schools and see their artwork. Her final job at Judgemeadow was as Head of Department for Art, but she started as a teacher of art and textiles and has been an arts co-ordinator, school display co-ordinator, a co-tutor at De Montfort University for the PGCE (post graduate certificate of education) and a professional tutor and co-tutor for trainee teachers, to name a few of her varied roles.
Vivienne would encourage any young person to consider teaching as a career, and says that the job needs enthusiasm, a love of the subject, the ability to learn from the students, a sense of humour and above all the ability to admit you are wrong and to recognise that you will teach students who are far more talented than you are yourself.
Congratulations go to Vivienne for an amazing career that has contributed to the outstanding Art work produced by students at Judgemeadow over a long period of time.