Rotary Club of Penrith
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Home | Club Activities | Nick Capron's Job Talk
Mon May 28th 2012
His career took him to Rotherham then to the Falkland Islands where his role was to develop education after the military campaign.
All new members give a talk to the club describing their professional life. Nick Capron’s career was in primary education, having moved from his home town of Hull to study education in London. His first school presented any amount of challenges but at the end of that phase Nick had become a committed educationalist. With 650 children, the majority of whom had English as a second language, Nick’s job was to teach Year 5 children who were struggling to realise their potential. His community and caring credentials were established when he also taught some of their parents to speak English.
His career took him to Rotherham then to the Falkland Islands where his role was to develop education after the military campaign. He was there for three and half years. Later postings took him through Barrow and on to Carlisle where by now he was a head teacher. Nick explained his later career, helping failing schools to improve across the UK. He explained that children who were unable to make sufficient progress at primary school found it an uphill task to catch up in secondary schools.
His latest work in United Arab Emirates had shown state education being delivered bilingually, Arabic and English. All children had to be proficient in both languages so that the country would be well positioned when the oil runs out, with their citizens able to make progress on a world stage.
In conclusion he reassured his audience that primary education has improved immeasurably in the UK but that it remained important that teachers knew where each pupil was in terms of motivation and attainment so that targeted interventions could be delivered. National testing of children’s ability was an important benchmark that benefits children while providing invaluable data for school staff.
After a lively question and answer session President Malcolm thanked Nick for an excellent talk.