Year 10 Work Experience Week

In the week of 25-29 June, all our Year 10 pupils spent time in a variety of placements, gaining valuable work experience.  Two of our pupils have recounted their very successful weeks in the work place.

My Work Experience by Miles, 10B  For my work experience I worked with the British Army for five days.  I wanted to work with the army since it’s a career I’ve been considering for a long time, specifically becoming an officer.  We were based at a Ministry of Defence camp in Colchester.  However, we had a visit to Merville Barracks which is home to the parachute regiment which, alongside the Royal Marches, is one of the branches of the military I’d like to go down.

Whilst we were at the barracks we took part in a virtual reality close combat trainer and also countless battlefield scenarios using the L85A2 rifles and trying out the new sights and foregrips.  I was allowed to shoot the weapon on fully automatic along with three other people, which was a serious adrenalin rush.

I had two favourite parts of work experience.  The first was the 1.5 mile run which took place on Day One.  We ran alongside the instructors and were encouraged to run at best effort. I managed to complete the run in 10 minutes and 42 seconds.  My other favourite part was living in the field for 24 hours.  We marched from the camp midday on Wednesday to the harbour location (where we were sleeping) with full backpacks in the boiling heat.  Once we got there we started to set up our sleeping bags and began to build sentry posts.  Once the camp was set up we began sentry duties and cooking our ration packs. We then began patrols around the camp, conducting an ambush and using our anti ambush drills in a scenario.  For me, I loved these 24 hours since the whole course was teaching us skills, making us ready for the final exercise and it was a great feeling to combine all of the skills and have a successful final exercise.

For me, the main things I took from work experience was organisation skills.  It was vital to have these skills since every morning we had room inspections and if they were not up to standard we would be running all day!

My Work Experience by Katy, 10B  For my work experience placement, I had the honour of working in Moorfields Eye Hospital.  Moorfields Eye Hospital is one of the leading providers of eye care and people travel all over the world to be treated by these leading specialists in areas such as childhood glaucoma and adnexal and vitreoretinal surgery.  Mally Scrutton, a matron in the children’s hospital, handled my placement and gave me a clear timetable for each day.

On the first day of work experience I met with another student and Amani Bilal, the Head of Education, who briefed us on the health and safety rules and introduced us to Mally.  I was working on Paediatric so Mally gave us a tour of the building and introduced us to some of the nurses and doctors.  She made me feel very welcome and made sure I had access to everything and knew where everything was.  Mally then took me to Floor 3, a vitreoretinal clinic, where I was introduced to the staff.  I spent the first half of the day with an orthoptist who talked to me about low sight and briefed me on the patient and allowed me to watch when they had a check-up.

My favourite day was Day 5 of work experience.  I was asked if there was anything I particularly wanted to do and I said surgery and this was arranged.  Mally introduced me to a resident anaesthetist who toured me around the surgery floor and told me about her job, what it entails and finally how she qualified.

I was asked to put on a pair of scrubs and introduced to a patient who agreed to allow me to follow her through surgery.  She told me how she was feeling about the surgery and then she was taken to see the anaesthetist.  I watched as she was given general anaesthetic and was taken into theatre where she would have cataract surgery done.  The experience was very fascinating.  In the afternoon I went to Collar Prosthetic where I found out about how glass eyes are made and watched them paint the iris.  Overall the day was extremely interesting and fun.

During my time in Moorfields I learned a huge amount about the eye and different conditions as well as learning about the interrelationships and the roles the different people played in the hospital.  The experience affirmed my interest in the medical profession and was an overall great experience!