Andrea Fryers

Mercy College

School website: www.mercycollegebelfast.com

Subject or primary school year: Drama.

Your place of birth: Belfast.

Studied at: Queen's University Belfast.

First job: St Gemma's High School.

What it taught me: The importance of valuing people as individuals and the importance of having good relationships with others, both pupils and staff.

Family/status: Married to John and mother of two sons, Corey and Caiden.

Best advice you could give someone thinking of a teaching career: I know it is an old cliche that teaching is not just a job but a vocation, however this is honestly the truth! It is the best job and every day is a new adventure. Teaching requires you to give your heart and soul but the rewards you get back are priceless. It is such a priviledge working with young people. I absolutely love the pupils, they make every day so special.

My advice to a new teacher would be to spend time showing the kids how much care and love them. Remember, just as you have a story and a history, so do they and they need us to be their safe place to come to when things aren't going well. And they need us to be their cheerleader when they achieve success. 

I always knew I wanted to be a teacher. I was lucky to have great role models in my own teachers in Mercy College, because I now teach in the school I went to.

There was one teacher in particular who showed me how being kind, caring and loving is as much a part the job as other skills you learn in university. I was lucky enough to go on and work alongside her. I was a Mercy girl and now that I work here I feel I have 'come home'. That's what Mercy College is to me, a second home with my extended Mercy family.

I studied at QUB where I completed a BA Hons in Sociology and a PGCE and have been teaching ever since. It is definitely my calling in life, I love my job and I love my school. As a Drama teacher I get so much satisfaction seeing the confidence of some pupils grow and nurturing the talent of those pupils destined for stardom.

The Drama department has a key role in the life of the school and I really enjoy hosting our Halloween Hullabaloo and our school shows. I work hard to make school as much of a memorable place for our pupils as it was for me, so they leave feeling loved, respected and full of happy memories, knowing that they are a special individual who has a special place in my story. I don't think there is another job like teaching and getting to improve the lives of young people on a daily basis makes the more stressful times worthwhile.