Teaching beyond the moment: reflective practice and the human work of education

Barbara Fiordalisi completed her initial teacher training with NITE, graduating with a PGCE in Secondary English in July 2025. She then took advantage of our alumni discount to start her MA, choosing the Development of Expert Teaching specialism. Here she reflects on the impact this course has made on her thinking and practice.

Professional trust and academic rigour

NITE’s online MA respects teachers as practitioners working within their own distinct ecosystems, valuing both our professional integrity and individuality. It strikes a careful balance between flexibility and structure, allowing for personalised engagement while maintaining genuine academic rigour. What I have appreciated most is the professionalism throughout, not merely in the quality of materials and communication, but in the clear investment in helping us become more reflective, responsive educators through a range of critically engaged perspectives, including more nuanced areas such as relational proxemics and international comparisons.

Teaching people, not just pupils

More than this, the course continually reminds us that we teach people, not just pupils we encounter briefly and assume we understand. We teach versions of who they have been, who they are, and who they might become. Reflective practice, then, is not only about refining pedagogy, but about helping students shape their sense of self, sometimes beginning in small, human moments: being seen, being affirmed, or noticing something as fleeting as blossom drifting between trees and, for a second, surmising that the world has paused to acknowledge you.

Education as transformation

For me, this MA is an opportunity to deepen a personal philosophy of education, one first shaped during the NITE PGCE. It reinforces my belief that while individuality matters, there is something shared in what students need: to be recognised, to be understood, and to be supported in becoming. Education, at its core, is not solely the transmission of knowledge, but the quiet, transformative act of helping someone see themselves differently: in a warmer, more generous, multi-angled light.