Fri 26 Jun 2026
Changing tracks: My first six months in Rail Education
I decided to leave teaching in 2025 and at the start of 2026, I started my role as a Learning Development Officer for Platform. Of course, taking the leap into a new career is slightly terrifying, but the last six months have been a wonderful experience for me and I’m glad I took the opportunity to be a part of the team!
I have still found a lot of fulfilment in the role, especially as I am still able to support young people but in a different way to which I would in the classroom. I get to see young people getting excited about travelling by train, learning how to stay safe and finding out about careers that they could pursue in rail in the future. I still get to use and develop my teaching skills within my role and I get to explore the surrounding areas too!
Working with schools from a different perspective has been great, seeing passionate teachers supporting their pupils to have an experience through Platform is wonderful to see and to be able to work with different schools and build connections with both staff and young people is rewarding in itself. I have learnt so much about the rail industry since starting this role and I am aware that there is still so much that I don’t know. Not only have I been welcomed into the Platform team, everyone that I have met through my role have been supportive and willing to support me too.
Since starting the role, I have delivered workshops to 1,278 young people and I have taken 564 young people out on a train trip; 79 of them were travelling on a train for the first time! I have also been to lots of different stations, for either workshops and/or trips, these include Bristol Temple Meads, Bath Spa, Westbury, Frome, Bruton, Yeovil Pen Mill, Dorchester West, Dorchester South, Weymouth and Swindon. It has been wonderful to visit some new places, to meet new people and to see what is available in these areas for potential future trips.
I have been blown away by the brilliant questions that young people have around rail safety and their curiosity around rail travel too. I remember talking to one class about some career options available to them within the rail industry that they may want to do in the future and a child said to me “I never knew there were so many things we could do!” It’s so great to see young people so excited by their future prospects, especially when it comes to sustainable travel.
One of my favourite trips was taking a group of Year 6 students to experience the Inspiration Train at Salisbury – it was also my first time visiting too. It was amazing to see the children having such a great experience, learning about 200 years of the railway-, taking part with interactive activities, and the feedback reflected that too:
“Many of the children that attended were either SEN or DL and you could really see that for all of them the experience was really positive, they had lots to say about the things they enjoyed most about the experience. As a member of staff, it was really fantastic to see how some of the children really engaged with the idea or working on the railway in many different capacities. One child in particular really shone when they were given a task to create a bridge, it was fantastic to watch him come alive after he completed the task (an engineer in the making) Thank you for the opportunity to have this experience.” (Westbury Juniors Primary School, March 2026).
My time as a Learning Development Officer so far has been incredible and I am excited to begin working on resources and planning for the next academic year. I’m most looking forward to learning more about sustainable careers and travel, and creating resources and workshops with a Green Skills focus, which will be available to schools from the next academic year.
Looking back on my last six months at Platform, I am grateful that I took the leap to leave teaching and embark on this new role. While things look different from the average classroom, I am still able to use my teaching skills and knowledge to support young people in staying safe, learning about their future career opportunities and supporting staff and young people on their adventures using the trains!
If you are a qualified teacher looking to take on a new opportunity, we have a fixed term position available as a Learning Development Officer within our team. Follow this link to find out more:
Guardian – https://jobs.theguardian.com/job/10134305
NFP People – https://careers.nfp-people.co.uk/job/learning-development-officer-5358
