Jayne Davies joined Teacher Support Cymru as its new Volunteer Coordinator last month. Find out more about her and how you can get involved with her volunteer project.

What do you like about voluntary work?

I find voluntary work extremely rewarding and know how important volunteers are to an organisation - without them many valuable services would not be the success stories they have become.

What are you looking forward to doing at Teacher Support Cymru?

I am really looking forward to becoming part of the Teacher Support Cymru team and in particular to work with Volunteers to ensure that this valuable service offered to teachers in Wales thrives and flourishes.

Why is Teacher Support Cymru so important?

I have joined Teacher Support Cymru at a very important time in education in Wales. There are indeed many challenging times ahead for teachers and schools: the introduction and development of the School Effectiveness Framework and the Common Inspection Framework both with the emphasis on raising standards and improving education across Wales, budgetary pressures and in many authorities, school reorganisation issue. This is also set within the context of the Child Poverty Issue, which marks some areas in Wales as having the highest child poverty levels throughout Wales. These changes and challenges will undoubtedly make demands upon teachers. Teacher Support Cymru, through its work and hopefully with its Volunteer Friends Group will be able to provide teachers with the necessary support that they will need as we move through this educational 'transformation' agenda.

How can others get involved with Teacher Support Cymru?

If you are a retired teacher or thinking of retiring from teaching in the near future and have some spare time to offer our service, your skills, knowledge and experience may be of great value to Teacher Support Cymru and most importantly to other teachers.

What is the Friends of Teacher Support Cymru project?

The Friends of Teacher Support Cyrmu project aims to recruit, train and support small groups of volunteers across Wales, to raise awareness of Teacher Support Cymru to over 38,000 teachers in Wales. This will enable Teacher Support Cyrmu to be instrumental in raising the status of the teaching profession and ensuring that the health and wellbeing and effectiveness of teachers is given the attention it deserves.

What would a Volunteer Friend do?

The role of volunteers would be to:

• inform teachers of the services available
• visit local schools
• attend Inset days
• attend events for trainee days
• distribute leaflets and posters
• organise and/or support fundraising activities
• volunteers will bring their own particular skills and experiences to the project

How do I get involved?

If you think you would like to help and become part of the Teacher Support Cymru team as a volunteer, contact me at jayne.davies@teachersupport.info