Faces of rainbowtrekkers:
Laura Allan - from the county of Perthshire to the fields of Widdersdorf
The same way the rainbow is made of many different colors so is the team of rainbowtrekkers. A recent count has shown that the approximately 50 employees of our kindergartens come from at least 12 different countries. We would henceforth like to use this section of our newsletter to each month introduce to you one our team members.
First one is Laura Allan whom I am meeting for a breakfast coffee at the bakery in Widdersdorf right opposite the kindergarten. Laura was born in Dundee and grew up in Scotland. She earned a Higher National Certificate in Early Education and Childcare at the College Park University in Perthshire where she had studied for three years. Her certificate equals a German Erzieher degree. After graduation she followed her boyfriend to his placement to Heidelberg and from there to Cologne. Since then they have become quite settled in the Widdersdorf village community. Her boyfriend, who is also Scottish, works at the Widderdorf golf court.
In Heidelberg Laura has worked with three to four-year olds at the kindergarten of the German American Institute (DAI). She is with rainbowtrekkers since 2015. She had initially started at our Lindenthal branch and shifted to our kindergarten in Widdersdorf when it opened in late 2016.
She explains her initial motivation to gain a professional training in pedagogics by saying: “I come from a family with a lot of young children and I have been used to look after them. I have never regretted going into pedagogics professionally because it is important for me to support children and help them to grow independent.” She says, she finds joy in seeing how children need less and less assistance with every year they grow older.
Laura has recently shifted form the under three section of our Widdersdorf kindergarten to the preschool group with children aged 5 to 6 years. “Communication with them is very different than it has been with the younger ones”, she has observed, adding: “They make my teaching, their interest really shapes my teaching”.
She likes about rainbowtrekkers the pedagogical freedom she has to develop her own lesson plans instead of being forced to work with materials or contend demanded and provided by a too strict external curriculum. She feels very much supported by Sam and Sandra, the principal and deputy of her school.
She also likes that she is encouraged to attend seminars and professional development classes which she said has not been the case at other places she had worked before.
“There is an issue with fluctuation and people changing”, she says, but that as well had been there at other places she has worked. It is a current phenomenon of the job market that hits most kindergartens in Germany, especially if you are bilingual and your teams are young and international. “However, I am used to that and since people come from a lot of different places and we can learn from every newcomer in our team.”
Thank you very much, Laura, for the love and effort you give to the kita in Widdersdorf and for the loyalty and devotion to rainbowtrekkers throughout the years.
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