Get to Know Our Tutor Time Staff – Natalie Cole, Team Lead in Concord, NC

Natalie Cole, Team Lead at Tutor Time in Concord, NC has been working with children for 10 years and has been at Tutor Time for six of those. She worked in several classrooms at the center, including the toddler, pre-kindergarten and junior kindergarten rooms, before taking on her current role. Read on to learn more about Natalie, including why early education is so important to her, what her daily duties are and her surprising hidden talent!

Tell us some more about your experience in early child education.

I have North Carolina Early Childhood Credentials 1 and 2, North Carolina Early Childhood Administration Credentials 1 and 2, and I’m working toward my associate’s degree in early childhood education.

What are your day-to-day duties as Team Lead?

I help open the school in the morning and then I go into different classrooms and interact with the kids and staff. My favorite part about this job is being able to interact with the families and letting them know that their children are safe here and explaining everything that they’re learning throughout the day. It’s a lot of fun!

Do you have a favorite accomplishment since working at Tutor Time?

My favorite accomplishments are whenever we have our graduations here, and being able to see the children and how proud they are, and being able to see the look on the parents’ faces, and see all the tears…it’s special.

If you could bring anyone into your school to read a book to your students, who would it be?

It would definitely be Dr. Seuss. I love all of his books but I can hardly read his tongue twisters, and I’d want to hear him read them! And just because he’s such a famous author. I would definitely love for him to come in and read.

 Do you have a memorable moment since being at Tutor Time?

We do a holiday party at the end of the year, and I won the Director’s Choice Award. It’s a really big deal, so it made me feel special.

Tell us something about yourself that most people might not know.

My hidden talent is that I make pottery! It’s something that I learned in high school. I try to practice that at least once a month, but I have two boys at home, so they take up a lot of my time!

What do you do when you’re not working?

I just really spend a lot of time with my family. We like going to the zoo and museums.

Why do you feel early childhood education is so important?

I feel if we can teach children at a young age that learning is fun, and not so much of a chore, that they will love it for life. They have a great time learning and we have a great time teaching them, so as long as they’re having fun, then I believe that it just becomes easy for them to become life-long learners.