Member Focus: Tash

Hello! Tell us a little bit about yourself

Hi, I’m Tash! I’m a secondary PE teacher in Oxford going into my second year of teaching after completing NQT last year. I am just over 2 years married, enjoying life with my husband in a rural Bucks village.

What encouragements have you seen as a Christian in your school?

Being in school I have had some great conversations with fellow teachers keen to engage about church and who are interested in where I got my faith. Also being in a very secular environment, I’m encouraged that actually a lot of teachers who don’t know Jesus agree with the moral values of Christian teaching and are happy to stick to and stand up for them.

What challenges are there for Christians in your school?

I find that all chat is teaching chat whether in school or when socialising with other teachers outside of school. This makes it incredibly hard to get anything about God into conversations and sometimes leads to gossip about other teachers/leadership. So not going along with it and finding opportunities day to day is hard.

How can we pray for you in your context?

Firstly, with the busyness of being a teacher, you can pray that I would find time throughout my days to pray and come to God with praise, petitions and stresses as a first point of call. Secondly, that in those rare times that opportunities come up to say something of Jesus, I would be bold and joyful in saying something and be aware in the way I act and react to situations, wanting to show Jesus to others through that, especially with my other PE colleague.