Nicole to qualify as a hairdresser after life-changing illness ended her 17-year teaching career

Nicole suffers from FND (Functional Neurological Disorder) – a condition where the brain struggles to send and receive signals properly – which has left her needing to sleep 14 hours a day and struggling to speak at times.

Its symptoms have been so severe that she has been unable to seek employment since leaving the teaching profession, but she is now close to completing two years of part-time study at York College and acquiring a Level 2 Diploma in Women’s Hairdressing.

Whether that becomes a new vocational pathway will ultimately depend on an improvement in Nicole’s health but the course, whose costs were covered by the Adult Skills Fund via the York & North Yorkshire Combined Authority, has provided her with the hope, at least, that she no longer has to “give up on life altogether”.

On the transformative impact of the course, Nicole said: “I loved teaching drama but, when I became unwell, I wanted to still do something that was creative but not too taxing for me and a couple of hours a week is something that I’m able to manage. I’ve always been interested in hairdressing and desperately wanted to do my son’s hair because I absolutely love it as a creative outlet!

“When I became ill, I didn’t want to give up on life altogether, which I kind of had to do at the beginning, but the course has given me a belief that this is something I can still do – even if it means I just buy some more blockheads next year to carry on cutting!”

On the possibility of turning her new skills into a job, Nicole remains cautious but reasoned: “You can obviously go freelance after completing your Level 2. I’d be qualified and able to get insurance, but I think I probably need to build up to that and work on people I know for free, as and when I’m able to do it.

“Then, I could go from there and, hopefully, one day I’ll feel well enough to go and do it. I’m still very limited at the moment.

“I sleep 14 hours a day and struggle on certain levels. There are days when I can’t speak very well, so I need to do something that’s on my terms and in my own time.

“I’d love to say one day this is going to be my career, but it’s if my body gets better and allows me to do that. I could probably do somebody’s hair now and would then get very fatigued and need a couple of days off.

“I keep thinking I’ll get better, though, one day and, if I can start off small and it can be something that I can lead into, that would be brilliant, because I’ll be so, so sad when the course finishes. As soon as I was given a pair of scissors, I knew I loved cutting and was so excited.”

Nicole has also been appreciative of the manner in which College’s tutors have been understanding of her condition and ensured she felt welcomed as an adult learner returning to education as a pupil, rather than being the teacher!

“I loved going back into a learning environment and the fact that I’ve managed to do it has been really important for me,” she declared. “I also did a 10-week Flower Arranging course at Askham Bryan, but the step up from that would have been a full day and I wouldn’t have been up to that because of my health.

“Other than that, my last experience of education was my PGCE after my degree and the tutors have been very accepting of my condition. The tuition here is absolutely fantastic.

“This year has been more full-on in terms of the theory we’ve had to learn and cuts we’ve had to complete. It has been a lot to get through in three hours a week and I always have a million questions, because that’s how my brain works, but there’s not much they don’t know.

“And, even if you want to do something at home, some of the girls get in touch with the tutors outside of our College hours and they offer their advice on how to do it.”

Learning the trade in a training salon that accepts real-life customers in a setting that would be the envy of many other premises has also provided Nicole with great experience – even if it did feel a little daunting at first.

“Last year, when we did the Level 1 course, it was very quiet,” she pointed out. “Then, as soon as we were told we were opening up for clients, we were like, ‘What? No! Oh my goodness! Real people coming in!’

“But I thought, ‘You know what, I’ll give it a go,’ because we were being guided all the way through. It was terrifying at first, but now we’ve got used to it.

“My daughter is doing Beauty during the day, so the trade-off has been you can practice on my nails and I’ll do your hair. With her group, there were 10 people waiting in Reception and it was just manic, so I asked her how she coped, but she said, ‘You just get a buzz and get on with it’.

“It obviously works very well as a Training Salon. This is her first year, so I was here first, but she knew she definitely wanted to come here when she finished her GCSEs!"

To learn more about York College & University Centre's Level 1 Certificate in Hairdressing & Barbering, please click here

For further information on our Level 2 Certificate in Hairdressing, visit here

Details on all our adult learning courses, meanwhile, can be found here

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