This month’s ULR story comes from former footballer Chris Cutler.

ATL ULR and PE teacher Chris Cutler has gone from scoring goals on the football pitch to helping members achieve their personal and professional goals in the workplace.

ATL ULR and PE teacher Chris Cutler has gone from scoring goals on the football pitch to helping members achieve their personal and professional goals in the workplace.

I made my debut aged 17 playing in the reserves against Wolves and found myself being marked by none other than Emlyn Hughes, before playing at Bury. Then for seven seasons I was at Crewe Alexander and played alongside former England internationals David Platt and Rob Jones. One of the highlights in my first seasons was scoring the winning goal at Old Trafford against a Manchester United side that included Mark Hughes, Norman Whiteside and Paul McGrath. But unfortunately, a knee injury forced me to retire in 1991 and then I turned my attention to the fitness of others and opened my own health club.

Eventually I decided to pursue a career in teaching and with the support of the Professional Footballers’ Association, I completed a degree in Sports Science at Manchester Metropolitan University. I combined my studies with coaching the football teams at Abbey Gate College in Cheshire and when I finished my studies, I secured a teaching post there. It was my commitment to coaching and developing colleagues that made me think about applying for ATL’s Union Learning Rep course and I completed the training last year.

I am currently developing the ULR role to complement existing Continuing Professional Development (CPD) and performance management systems already in place. I am prioritising work with senior management so that I can improve CPD by widening the scope of in-service training and enable colleagues to undertake more leisure activities. The demands of teaching and the pressures to achieve on both staff and pupils need to be carefully handled and addressed to ensure a healthy work-life balance. The ATL has exciting plans for increasing involvement in CPD which it is implementing with backing from unionlearn’s Union Learning Fund.

Chris Cutler