If the thought of a career as a nursery school teacher sounds tempting, then Jenny Boyd the principal of Enniskillen Nursery School has one simple piece of advice: 'you have to have eyes in the back of your head'.

However, with Jenny as an example, it is obvious there are many more qualities necessary to succeed in this career, with a love of young children at the forefront.

Jenny, who has 28 years' teaching experience under her belt, the last 10 as principal at Enniskillen Nursery, also points to a need for sincerity. She believes young children can pick up on insincerity, a ingrained kindness; and a desire to help both your pupils and their family to develop.

There are many ways to progress into this job, with some choosing to do a 'general' degree and then top this up with a Post Graduate Teaching Certificate. Others like Jenny headed straight to teacher training college upon leaving school to do a straight degree in Education.

For Jenny, the decision was simple as she always knew she wanted to teach in a primary school. Her subjects at Stranmillis College, where she obtained her Bachelor of Education, were geography and PE. While specific to education, this degree does allow the graduate to teach at any level, nursery, primary or secondary.

There are also a range of other ways to enter teaching, such as completing a NVQ childcare qualification which is always a good first step into the job. It is also helpful to try and build up as much experience of working with young children as possible.

Upon graduating from College, Jenny found herself travelling right around the country, teaching a variety of ages.

"My year was the last of the four year degree students to graduate, which meant that the third year students graduated at the same time as us, so there was a lot of competition for jobs. I got a temporary job teaching P6 in Harmony Hill in Belfast. This led to a permanent post to teach P4 at Lead Hill Primary School, before I was moved to teaching P1. I then transferred to teaching P1 in Bangor Central Primary.

"I found I was moving down through the year groups, but I was certainly very comfortable teaching the younger ages. I really enjoyed it.

For Jenny, her qualifications in PE and love of sport added an extra dimension to what she was able to offer any school she was employed in. And, she cannot underestimate the advantage this can bestow on a teacher.

"I was always interested in sport and found that I used this a lot in extracurricular activities with the children. I also moved into coaching gymnastics with the Sports Council.

"And, through this I was asked to contribute to the Northern Ireland Curriculum Review in the late 80's/early 90's, when we formed a working group to produce the PE Curriculum for the Department of Education."

After this, Jenny took advantage of another opportunity which came her way, and took a secondment from her teaching post to work with the South Eastern Education and Library Board as PE Field Officer.

"This involved setting up and delivering of in-service in primary, secondary, and grammar schools right across the board, and helping schools to meet the new PE curriculum."

After her secondment, Jenny returned to her job in Bangor, where she was 'Head of Infants' teaching P1 to P3. At this stage, she began to recognise that she really wanted to work in a nursery setting. However, most jobs in this sector were calling for experience with children under school age, so she found herself in a difficult situation.

Then Jenny saw a job advertised for a teacher for a 'Full-Reception' class at the Model School in Enniskillen. This meant all the pupils in the class were under the statutory age.

From her new post, Jenny had a bird's-eye view of the new Enniskillen Nursery School which was being built on the Dublin Road in Enniskillen. She went for the post of principal when the school opened 10 years ago, and was successful in her application and has never looked back.

This is the only 'Nursery School' in Fermanagh and is it a free-standing nursery, catering for 78 children. The Nursery has it's own Board of Governors, and, as it is a full integrated school, there are no religious representatives on the Board of Governors.

Every day for Jenny is unpredictable, but there are two things she can guarantee - it will be busy, and it will be good fun. She spends four-and-a-half hours, without a break, teaching the children, who are all under school age. In this time, Jenny can find herself doing quite literally anything, from sitting on the floor helping build a train set or climbing an imaginary mountain!

But, it is not all about playing, Jenny explains. A large part of the job is knowing exactly what each of the 26 children in the class is doing at every minute.

"You do have to have eyes in the back of your head. And your brain is always constantly working, it is all about risk assessment. We have to allow them to try things for themselves, and encourage them to make and build things, but we need to know when to step in, for instance, when something becomes dangerous, we have to intervene."

After spending the morning teaching, the rest of Jenny's day is packed with the other duties any principal of a school has to meet, from catching up on all the administration of the school to meetings with the Board of Governors. It is a physically and mentally demanding role, from being on your feet all morning with the young pupils, to trying to cope with ' the 77 live issues' principals currently have to deal with, covering everything to child protection and the difficulty in getting PEC checks completed.

For Jenny however, this is the only job for her: "It is very rewarding to watch a child come to the school in September who has great difficulty leaving their mummy on those first mornings, to seeing them leaving at the end of the year as a confident little person who can do so for themselves.

"It is often very difficult to see them leave," she admits, "as I have effectively become their 'school-mum' for a year, but we do encourage the children to come back and see us when they have their school-uniform on for big school."

Jenny is adamant Nursery School is not just a preparation for primary school, that it has a very real function to allow children to learn and to grow, to spend time laughing and playing with other young children, and to start to know who they are.

Quite simply, Jenny believes nursery is a very special time in a young child's life and, personally she relishes the chance to be involved in this influential year group.