Charlotte Gaunt is the top student at the July graduations
Thu, 24 Jul 2014 14:34:00 BST
Charlotte gained the highest average mark of 89.33% and now embarks on a career in primary teaching
WHEN a group of Barnsley children start their schooling in September, one of their teachers will be a former student who achieved the highest mark out of thousands who graduated from the University of Huddersfield in July 2014. And Charlotte Gaunt has a passionate belief in the crucial importance of primary education, which is often not given the respect it deserves, she argues.
Over the past two years of her BA course, she averaged an exceptionally high 89.33 per cent, giving her the top score of all the elite group of students who qualified for a Chancellor’s Prize at the University.
Charlotte, who is from Selby and is the first member of her family to attend university, confesses that the distinction came as a shock. “But I am a bit of a perfectionist and I always want to achieve highly in everything that I do!” she added.
Her degree in Primary Education means that she is now a fully-qualified teacher and she has landed a first job at Keresforth Primary School, in Dodworth, near Barnsley. At the age 21 she has achieved a career goal that she set when she was a young schoolgirl herself.
“I have wanted to be a teacher since I was five, because I have always admired my teachers and have always loved school and children. I have always wanted to make a positive difference to their lives,” she said.
After attending Brayton High School, Charlotte went on to Selby College, where she studied for a BTEC in child care. This was the stepping stone for her University of Huddersfield degree course, which included a large number of placements that she found especially valuable and stimulating.
She has always set her sights on primary schooling, rather that specific subject teaching at secondary level. And Charlotte is in no doubt about the importance of her chosen sector.
“Primary teachers don’t get enough credit,” she says. “People think early years education is all about play, but the basic skills learned at primary school underpin everything that follows.
“If children are not properly taught the basics then they are really going to struggle further up school. If you get the foundations wrong, then the whole structure will collapse.”
Charlotte is excited to be launching her teaching career, but in time she has plans to add to her qualifications with part-time postgraduate study at the University of Huddersfield.
“I just want to be able to put 100 per cent into my job and then, when I get a work-life balance, I will probably come back to studying,” says the star Huddersfield student of 2014.
