For the next few days I always lingered around the letterbox every morning, hoping to catch any letters that were for me. But again I was hugely disappointed at the fact that nobody replied. I was tearful and gave up on finding a work placement.
On a warm and sticky Friday afternoon, I was watching television when my mum told me that there was someone on the phone for me. Now who could that be, I thought to myself. Well, anyway to my surprise it is fro St.Bernadette Catholic School confirming my placement form 3rd November to 14th November. I was so thrilled that I wanted to tell the whole world.
Few days after they sent me a letter explaining all the policies, rules and timings. I would be working with year 4 with Miss Bowen and will start from 8:45am and finish at 3:00pm (on Friday finish at 2:00pm). I was also told that I must wear formal clothing. I didn’t worry transport as it was only ten minutes walk from my house.
In the summer holidays, I couldn’t wait to get back to my school. My family were hugely surprised because usually I don’t want to go to school especially with exams which I hate. I was counting days off and in what seemed like million years the Sunday night came. The excitement inside me turned to nervousness. My stomach was already churning. Suddenly I didn’t want to do the work experience. I set my alarm to 7:30am and tried to take an early night but my eyes were sleepless. My senses told me that if I go to sleep I’ll be late for tomorrow.
The next sound I heard was my alarm banging in my eardrum. Surprisingly, I wasn’t nervous or anxious anymore. I wanted to do my work experience and felt very mature and grown up. I got dressed and ate my breakfast in no time. I was expected to get to my work placement at 8:30am so I left home at 8:15am. I reached St.Bernadette Catholic School in ten minutes which seemed like ten hours. As I was early the receptionist told me to wait in the waiting room until the supervisor comes.
The waiting seemed very elongated. In fact it was a long period. The supervisor came to get me 20 minutes after my arrival by which the school had started. She explained the principles and the policies again to me and another girl from my school who was also on work experience. I was delighted because at least I knew someone who I could talk to. She then took me to my class where I’ll be working for the next two weeks. I felt an abrupt jolt inside me. I prayed to God; please don’t let it be someone awful.
God answered my prayers. I realized from the first sight that Miss Bowen was a very pleasant and charming person to work with. She was delightful to have me working with her.
She introduced me to the class who seemed very eager to find out my name. In fact the first question that they asked me was my name. Some of them who couldn’t pronounce my name correctly or didn’t know my name, called me ‘Miss’. I felt very awkward because I also called my teachers ‘Miss’ and all of a sudden I turned from a student to a ‘Miss’. I also felt stupid when Miss Bowen told me to call her Laura. It was like as she was my friend. In a way I felt good because they were treating me like adults but the change was so sudden that I couldn’t adopt it.
The first thing Laura told me to do was to listen to children read. I was very keen and felt very grown up signing their reading records and telling them what they needed to do for homework. I hadn’t finished listening to children when Laura told me to finish quickly so she could explain my next job to me. I looked up at the clock and was shocked to see that I already have taken fifteen minutes when Laura told me that it will only take few minutes. I realized that in adult life you have to do things in a way so you don’t throw away too much of your time and the jobs are also done efficiently.
After finishing with the children, I took down an old display, making sure I don’t upset Laura by ripping any of the display because she needed to use it once more. I had to put up the new display using the staple gun. I was frightened to see that thing. I once used in my home and it was so heavy that I dropped on my foot while I was using it. Since then me and the staple gum have been enemies. I wanted to tell Laura that I didn’t’ want to use the staple gun but a voice in my head reminded me of my mother’s advice; “you never learn things unless you make mistakes”. Keeping that in my mind I happily invited the challenge. I tried to be confident and starting to put up the display while the children were mesmerised by the sound of the staple gun.
When I had finished Laura was satisfied with my work and she wasn’t the only one. Children were content to see their work up and I was pleased to learn a new skill.
At break time Laura invited me to the staffroom and told me to help myself to coffee or tea. I didn’t want to disturb my habits and watched the children play like animals; running around each other and little girls playing hopscotch. I couldn’t remember doing any of these things while I was their age or maybe it was the fact that I didn’t want to remember these things.
After break Laura told me to help children with their numeric work. Everyone was treating me like a Goddess and wanted me to help them with their work. Even on silly things like drawing a line. It was like being in a zoo where everyone is just looking at you and shouting; Amina how do you do this or can you help me?
I was exhausted at the end of the lesson from running around and realized that adult life is not easy. It’s true that you can do whatever you want to do but you don’t get the time to do what you fancy doing. I think Laura realized that I was tired out and set me some work on the computer. For me it was like dreamland, away from all that clatter and noise. I produced some display work on the computer which Laura appreciated.
At lunch time I went home and felt very calm and peaceful. Just as I started to relax it was time to go back to my new ‘work’ or my temporary life.
I put up another display while the children were at their P.E. lesson. I don’t think Laura liked the way I arranged it so she asked me to put it some other way. I didn’t mind but it was rather hard to get the staple pins out and then put them up again.
However, when it was time to go I felt that even putting the display was a bit tedious, I enjoyed my first day as a teacher assistant. The children all thanked me and for me that felt like the best moment of the day.
For the next few days my jobs were almost the same; listen to children read; put display up or tidy up the classroom. The majority of the time I was working with someone else but when I wasn’t I felt isolated, bored and lonely. I have never liked to work alone or stay alone.
On Thursday the school held a history day and everyone from teachers to children were dressed up. Every where I looked I saw costumes and felt different because I wasn’t wearing one. Year 4 were dressed up as Tudors. Some were wearing clothes which emphasised their richness. Others were wearing clothes or cloaks and represented themselves as slaves which were quite common those days. I was stunned to see that most of the costumes were made form old curtains. It seems funny how some people can recycle everything. The hilarious moment came when a teacher dressed as Elvis Presley tried to sing. It was like a frog croaking with a bad throat. I was laughing so much that my sides started aching with laughter.
However the rest of my day was less eventful. I didn’t do much apart from watching a show on HenryV1 which was way below my age group.
On Friday, when I was putting yet another display, I met a student teacher who was doing her training at the school. She helped me put the display up. She explained the teaching job and gave me some advice on my Exams.
In the next week teacher from the school came to see me. She asked me about the first expression of the place and I told her that even though the building looks old from outside, it is livened from inside by colourful pictures and the people are also very lovely. She asked me about the jobs I do. I told her that generally my tasks were clean and indoors but I sometimes had to go outside with the children when they were doing their games lesson.
The best moment came on the last day when children wrote me a big thank you card and said they will miss me very much. They all gave me hugs and two or three actually cried. Suddenly I forgot all my troubles and just looked on this day.
If anybody asked me if I had enjoyed my work experience then I would say yes because I would sum it up by explaining this day.
By the end of the work experience I had learnt that adult life is not as easy as it looks and it can be very hard if you don’t get the job you wanted to do.
A part of me always knew that work looks very flashy from outside but inside it can be very demanding and hard. Even though my work experience wasn’t successful, I would still look forward to work because I couldn’t imagine a life where I didn’t have a career. However I am hundred percent sure that I will miss my school life.
I think work experience is a valuable experience in terms of future planning for any student, you can learn more about the career you want to adopt. However this was not the case with me. The work was not associated much with life as a doctor. But it was a good experience on terms of work; you learn how to work in an organisation. The main thing I gained from my work experience was working as a part of a team and on my own with children. I also learnt how organisations work behind the scenes.
My work experience has taught me that working with children can be very demanding and stressful but I would like to take on the challenge and aim to be a paediatrician.