MY FIRST EVER WORK EXPERIENCE! 👭👬

Sorry to those of you that got the email notification about this. I was re-organising my blog posts to give you all a lovely overview of all the work experience and volunteering I did whilst I was applying for Medicine and seemed to have pushed this very old reflection to you all via email. And overview of everything I did is up anyway: click here to see my Pre-Med Journey. 

Feel feel to read the reflection if you please…😂

I helped organise and run a 6-week after school science club at a local Primary school which involved dealing with and dissecting various organs. I dealt with the organs maturely and safely whilst demonstrating them to the pupils. I also delivered a short presentation to them each week regarding basic facts and interesting information about each of the organs including the heart, lungs and liver. I had to speak in an engaging manner in order to capture the attention of the children and also speak at a relevant level so they are able to understand me. It was a satisfying experience trying to explain the complex roles and functions of the organs to the children in basic terms, and I felt it really developed my communication skills.

After completing my GCSEs I decided to go back to the primary school for a month where I worked with the Year 6 students and I got involved with their lessons including Science, Maths, Poetry, DT and ICT. I also helped to prepare and organise the Year 6 end of year assembly and played a role in it, under the request of the children. I assisted children of various abilities to create a model representing something which they enjoyed about their primary school years. This required a lot of effective communication and allowed me to have some fun with the children. During the Maths lessons I was responsible for personally teaching a high achieving year 6 pupil which encouraged and motivated me to start private tutoring from home. I was also asked to watch the children playing outside on a number of occasions which demonstrates that I am a very responsible and trusted individual.

As well as being involved with their daily lessons, I was also given the opportunity to create a lesson plan on any Science topic. I chose Acids and Alkalis as I wanted to be able to incorporate an experiment and then I delivered this to the class. I created worksheet and resources which I thought would be useful for the children. I demonstrated the red cabbage indicator experiment and allowed both year 5 and 6 students to carry it out whilst making sure they were adhering to safety precautions. During the lesson I displayed communication and presentation skills as I was able to capture their attention and make sure all the children were clear on what they were doing. I explained the concept of neutralisation and its uses, for example, in bee or wasp stings and in indigestion. I also marked the children’s books and provided them with feedback for improvement. My lesson was assessed by the current Year 6 teacher and was graded as being ‘good with aspects of outstanding’.

I really enjoyed this experience even though I now know that I do not want to particularly work in a school in the future. I enjoyed being involved with children and the teaching aspect is something I definitely want to incorporate in a in my future career in a small proportion. This also renounced my love for Science and I think I managed to pass on my interest in this subject to all the pupils in the class.