Sophie Li-Rocchi

Hello, I'm Sophie Li-Rocchi and I'm the head of an art department at a prep school in North Norfolk in the UK.

Well, being an art teacher is a very busy job, it's a very practical job. Of course, the main part of my job is teaching children. And that's a really lovely thing to do, to be in the company of children who are super fun.

And of course, as an art teacher, we do lots of practical projects. So we're painting, we're sculpting, we're doing all sorts of things. And in my day, yeah, most of it is teaching in the art room. But there's other things that happen in art teacher's day too.

So a typical day will start at eight in the morning, so that might involve you travelling to work before that, so an early start generally.

And as a teacher in a school like this, you're a tutor, so you welcome your tutor group and have a chat to them and make sure their day starts okay.

And then you're off into lessons. At the school I teach at, there's nine lessons in the day. Most of my art lessons are double lessons, so they're an hour and 15 minutes long, so you have to be very prepared with all the practical projects.

But of course in a school day there are break times and as a teacher you might have to go and be on duty outside and spend more time with the children out there. If you have a period or two where you're not teaching you're generally planning and preparing your lessons which you're about to deliver.

And as an art teacher, there's lots of other exciting things that happen too. You put up lovely displays and you have to order materials and put things away and do a lot of tidying. That happens a lot in this place. So as an art teacher, beware, you will have to do lots of tidying.

And yes, you see the children off at the end of the day and sometimes you do have other things like meetings with other teachers, meetings with parents, report writing, that kind of thing.

But a typical day is mainly going through lessons, spending lots of time with children and doing exciting projects.

So in a school like this, there's a large team of teaching staff. There'll be everyone from the head teacher and deputy heads and things to heads of departments like me and lots of other teaching staff.

But there's a lot of support staff as well. There's learning support teachers, there's people who prepare the food in the kitchens, the caretakers, people who sort the kind of grounds out that kind of thing. So lots of people we work with.

I work closely with some of the other departments. So I might meet with a drama department to discuss plans for scenery and things for plays or have some cross-curricular meetings, that kind of thing.

But I teach, I'm the only art teacher here, so I kind of have a lot of meetings with myself quite often. But I do, you know, it's a sociable job.

So you're always talking to other people and making sure you're kind of doing everything right.

Well, there's lots of fab things about my job. First of all, I work in a place like this, which I absolutely love coming into work in the morning, kind of having a brilliant environment full of art, which is what I love.

If you're an art teacher, you're gonna love art and paint and all that kind of thing. So that is a brilliant environment to be in. I have a lovely room, have lots of light coming in here and it's a fab place to be. It's brilliant to be working with children and helping them learn and do brilliant things with art.

And I'm hoping I nurture kind of a passion for art with them. And it's great to see when they achieve something and kind of overcome problems with what they're making and doing, oh, it's brilliant. So working with children is fantastic.

Also, it doesn't really feel like a job because I'm doing something I love. So it's just a great thing to be there. There's challenges as well. It's good to have challenges. So sometimes you're very busy and you need to kind of organise yourself. But if you like a routine, and I do like routines, teaching is a great job.

So I come from a big family of teachers, surprisingly. So I think I was kind of probably gonna end up this way, but initially I wasn't quite sure what I wanted to do, but I went off and studied art.

At one point I wanted to work in museums, that kind of thing, but I ended up doing a teaching qualification and ended up in teaching and I've got a family like I said lots of art teachers in my family who all love it and are passionate about it, so I suppose you kind of see that and follow that.

And I always loved school as well when I was at school, particularly doing art and creative subjects, so it seemed like a really great place to kind of take my career, doing something I love and following in the footsteps of lots of my family.

Right, so first of all, I was always, I suppose, I was really positive at school. I really loved school myself and I loved art, drama, music, all the creative things. Actually, I kind of liked every subject. I just liked learning.

And so I carried on with my education, did my GCSEs, did my A levels. I was never entirely sure I wanted to be a teacher or anything like that. So I went off and went to art school, studied art.

And then of course at the end of your degree, you're a bit like... what shall I do? where shall I go? And I was always, should I go do museums and work in museums or maybe go and try teaching?

So I then did my teacher training after my degree and ended up teaching and then have loved it ever since. So school and all the different stages of qualifications were very important to get here.

As part of my job here, a big part of my job is helping with the scenery and props and things for plays. And so working very closely with the drama department. And that's one part of my job.

As well as loving the teaching, I've loved getting involved with the set design and set painting and prop making for all the school plays that go on here. And that means I can carry on with my creativity and my kind of painting and making and doing while having a brilliant job doing the teaching.

One of the best moments was a couple of years ago doing a production of The Lion King and in their art lessons with the entire of year five and six, I got them making all their headdresses, loads of animals.

What do we have? Elephants, giraffes, warthogs, lions, you name it, zebras. And we made it. It took a whole term to make these wonderful masks and then to paint the set and see them come to life on stage with the children who had made that. That was brilliant. So that was a highlight.

Just to go for whatever your passions are.

So I would always encourage people to know what you love, go and try and find work in something you love doing, because then it doesn't really feel like work and work is a fantastic place to go to every day. So follow your dreams.