Latoya Hood has spent the past two weeks planning and setting up her classroom in preparation for the start of the school year.
The Whangārei woman is one of thousands of teachers across Northland who will start heading back to school over the next two weeks.
But the beginning of the year is particularly exciting for Hood, tomorrowmarks her first day as a teacher.
"I'll be a teacher - not a student teacher or a teacher in training but I'll actually be a teacher," she said.
Hood, 23, will be teaching year 1 students at Morningside School in a collaborative classroom, which means rather than having one teacher in a classroom there is two.
"I love it so much. As a BT (beginning teacher) I keep saying to myself I would be stressing out so much by now if I was in a single cell.
"It's just having that support and that person you can lean on - like Sam, my team member who I'm working with, she's been teaching for 10 years now and she's really experienced," she said.
Hood said while school has been on her mind for a while, it was not until the few weeks leading up to the first day of term one that she started getting in to the "nitty gritty" of planning.
"Over the last two weeks I've probably been in school every day of the week. Last week (two weeks ago) was setting up the classroom, making sure every thing is in its right place so it works and flows.
"This week (last week) it's all been about the planning. Having a long term plan - like the kinds of things we want to achieve with the kids, what do we want to get across to the kids; and then just our weekly planning."
Last year Hood completed her final year of a three year Bachelor of Education degree at the University of Auckland's Te Tai Tokerau campus in Whangārei.
Before she started that, she was at Youth Service working with 16 and 17-year-olds who had fallen through the educational system.
"My job was to connect with those kids and support them in either going back in to work, training, or education. I had done that for two or three years and working with youth that had that mindset around education being not good, it kind of just pushed me to teaching," she said.
Hood is familiar with Morningside School. She completed her second year practicum (teaching placement) at the school and relieved at the school last year.
She has even met her students.
"They're so cute. Some of them have been at school for half a year and some of them have been in school for a year. I did new entrants on my last practicum and I absolutely adored them so I'm so stoked."
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