I couldn’t go to sleep, there were so many questions flying through my head ‘How the hell am I going to survive two whole weeks without gossiping about the latest news to my friends? What am I going to wear? Are they going to notice me?’ Etc, etc, etc. Oh, my God, its tomorrow, tomorrows my work experience, is this what I really want to become when I grow up?
That morning I woke up, exhausted to go back to sleep. I couldn’t do that; they’ll sack me before I even give it a go. It’ll also give a bad reputation to my school, and I’ll be getting yelled at by Miss Gibbs, which is the last thing I want to happen. I wore blue jeans with my sister’s new top she bought from New Look. I was trying to look simple because the first impression to them should show that I am able to look casual and not overdressed. As I got out of the door, I looked up, prayed to God to help me build up my self-esteem and in return I got drops of water falling from the sky, it was as if the sky was crying. From then I knew it would be a bad start for me.
As I got closer to the school I seemed to slow down my speed, the sky stopped crying and I began to get anxious, there in front of me was a small boxed-sized school, ‘Welcome to Odessa Infant School’ was the sign written in blue, with gold outline on the gate. I couldn’t believe it as soon as I was standing in front of the gate my heart started to beat like a drum. I started to go red, which symbolised the nervousness I felt inside. I could feel the hot steam on my face; I began to sweat as never before. This was the most embarrassing moment even before I had started my work experience. As soon as I went inside the tiny eccentric building, there was a woman coming towards my way. She was wearing a large sized grey blazer, with matching skirts. As she was coming towards me she was smiling, I felt horrified, because she wasn’t the sort of person I wanted to smile back at, she was obese and ugly. She had a red nose; I couldn’t wait no longer to find out who the woman was, as I found it hilarious. As soon as she came to me she said ‘So you must be the employee from Stratford School,’ politely. She sneezed right in front of me and then even blew her noise, which was gross, yet I did not say a word, because I wanted her to notice my positive side.
‘Umm, yes my name is Sanjida,’ I mumbled
Contemporarily I thought she was very polite, the way she welcomed me into the new unknown environment made all my nervousness inside fly away. From this day I realised never to judge a book by its cover.
The first day wasn’t as depressing as I thought it would have been. For the first week I was to work with the nursery children and just follow some basic principals told by Nadia, my first employee link. She was a very pretty young lady around her mid twenties. She introduced me to other teacher assistants, Shazia, Rashida and Somaya The first inspiration I’d got from my colleagues was that all of them were keyed up to meeting me. From then I knew my work wasn’t going to be so bad after all. I was shocked. The teachers and the children were really nice and polite; they were definitely the sort of person I wanted to work with.
The following days were a normal fun day for the children and a tiring day for the teachers. We got out the sands, water, bikes, paints, cars, dolls etc for the children. All day seemed to be a typical day for me; as usual I was the Cinderella doing the jobs for the kids, while the teacher made a nice hot cup of tea for themselves, not to mention they did invite me in, but there was nothing in common, they were much older then I was and married . In addition, at the end of the day I had to mop the classroom, which I found disgusting. One day while I was mopping the floor, to my shock I saw my brother and his mates laughing at me, making silly remarks, they found it hilarious. From that day, I made sure none of my family members went to collect me from the nursery. On the first week Friday, it was my last day with the nursery children, and it was surly a day to remember. We called this a fun day, as there was only one more week before the school shut down for the summer holidays. We had face paintings, DJ’s came in, a bouncing castle, etc. I didn’t want to leave the children; they filled me with joy. The children loved having me around because of the childish attitude I had towards them.
It was my second week, and it seemed like a year, I was already missing my friends, Miss Gibbs and her lectures and how could I forget my English tutor, Mr Moore and his bizarre insignificant tuition.
I was placed with the Year One children and I found it much better working with them then the nursery children. Ms Merchant, the teacher assistant was cheerful and out going, and I was delighted to work with her class. The best job I got in my work experience was pulling out the staples from the notice board. Yes, you must be laughing to yourself but it was true, I loved it. Everyday seemed like a different day for the last week, I didn’t want that week to go, it was fun, and the children found me very helpful. One day, at break time, I was outside filling in my work experience booklet, as there was nothing better to do. Then a seven year old boy came up to me and pointed at another boy saying that he liked me, I was like ‘ok’. I am not trying to say that I am good looking or anything, but this particular day, I did seem to look smashing, no wonder why everyone seemed to notice me. Anyway, back to the story, the boy’s name was Danny. He came towards me and kissed me on my cheeks. I was surprised, what if a teacher saw me and thought I was a child molester, I would have been sacked immediately. I was panicking inside and went bright red outside, I felt it, I felt my cheeks burning. Luckily, I got my self out of all this, I got ‘save by the bell’, I went straight towards class 4, where I was situated after the bell went.
Towards the end of the two weeks I realised how hard it is working with children. There were advantages and disadvantages working with them. The advantages were that you enjoy your day that is if you’re fond of children, and you get to do easy work. The disadvantage of all this is that you need to make sure they are in your sight at every time and no matter how hot the weather is you will need to go out with them. Overall I have learnt the value of hard work and communication; I also discovered why Miss Gibb’s shouts at us a lot. This work experience did help me a lot for my ambitions in the future. I will make sure that whatever I do in the future I make teaching my second choice.
