Primary teacher Adam Fortune has graduated from Dundee University – just a few hundred yards from where he used to busk during his student days.
Adam, originally from Campbeltown, received his post graduate diploma in primary education (PGDE) on Thursday morning.
The 27-year-old spent his undergraduate days playing his guitar and singing to crowds of weekend shoppers who passed by his pitch next to the popular dragon statue on High Street.
A keen folk singer and musician, he also performed as a solo artist and in bands across Scotland before discovering his true vocation.
Teaching didn’t force Adam to hang up his guitar, however, and he regularly plays and sings with his pupils at Oakbank Primary School in Perth to enliven lessons.
He said: “I graduated from Abertay University in 2011 but it wasn’t a great jobs market at that time and I ended up moving to Glasgow and working in bars as well as keeping up the music but not really knowing what I wanted to do.
“Eventually I went to the careers advice centre in Glasgow to see what I could do with the qualifications I had. The adviser asked me what subjects I had liked at school. I said that I had enjoyed English and had considered becoming an English teacher. They explained that I would need to obtain an English degree before starting my postgrad training but said I was qualified to start training as a primary teacher.
“I hadn’t even seen that as an option before but started thinking about it and realised that I would be much better suited to teaching at primary rather than secondary school. I went back the next day and told the advisor that’s what I wanted to do.”
Now living in Perth, he has already made his mark by appearing on STV’s Scotland Tonight to discuss the importance of teachers inspiring for their pupils.
