My work life as a Teaching Assistant (TA)

Hi everyone and welcome back to my blog and today’s blog will be on my work life as a Teaching Assistant (TA) going from volunteering at the school to working there full time including the tasks that I did working in a classroom environment and going through the change from working in year 2 into reception and how it impacted me later on within the year.

I started working as a Teaching Assistant (TA) when I was 18 years old as a volunteer at a primary school, working in year 2 on a daily basis. It was hard at first, but I got the hang of it during the time I was there. But during my voluntary experience, there was some miscommunication that I had with one of the teachers and the teaching assistants in year 2 and one of the teaching assistants was pretty much out of order and started to get angry towards me because I didn’t use the resources that were provided to me and I got upset and was even in tears all because of her angry tongue lashing to me ?.

All because of the fact that I was helping with the kids with the work and I didn’t use the resources that was provided even though I had it in my hand which I completely forgotten about it and and both the teacher and teaching assistant think I don’t have what it takes to become a teaching assistant and thought that the work was too hard for me as well as the fact that thought I was irresponsible as an 18-year-old that’s discrimination straightaway and yet they still have gone with the fact that I wasn’t capable to do the job and they also thought that I was too immature to help around with the children ?.

What made it even worse from the situation is that the main teacher of the classroom told me to come in twice a week instead of five days a week and decided not to discipline the teaching assistant who lashed her anger out towards me and gave me a tongue lashing and just because that teaching assistant who worked for the school doesn’t mean that she can get away with murder, unfortunately she got away with it and even though she apologise for what she did to me, I still ended up getting the punishment from the teacher which is completely biased and discriminating towards me ?. On a positive note, it gave me some time and a chance to do my GCSE resit in English (see my continued teen life in college blog post) and I even had time to have a good night sleep as well ?.

However the downside on having to volunteer two days a week is that I’m missing out on the action and I’m losing some of the experience on working full time as a teaching assistant in year 2 ? and what made it even more worse was that the deputy headmistress thought of an idea on making me go backwards instead of forwards by taking me to reception and helping up the children in that year group, it’s such a shame that she doesn’t see that I can do a lot more than just helping out little children and the fact that I have some potential on working in a school environment, because I already had some experience on volunteering with children in a higher year group like year 6 from my voluntary experience when I finished my GCSE exams ?.

As the deputy head mistress walks me to the reception classroom, she introduced me to one of the teachers in reception and he was a nice guy. He explained to me on how reception works and he even introduced me to the rest of the classroom, which the children were really sweet, but yet hard to handle. However the best thing about this was that I gained some experience on working with a younger age group.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my work life as a Teaching Assistant (TA) blog. Please stay tuned for the next post which is my continued work life as a Teaching Assistant (TA) and don’t forget to leave a comment below on my blog post and spread the word out about my blog too. ???

My continued teen life in college

Hi everyone and welcome back to my blog, today’s blog will be continuing my teen life in college, but with more of my experience on studying childcare and education along with my work experience in a primary school and what I had to do when working in a primary school, the struggles that I went through on gaining the qualification and even turned in voluntary for the school.

After finishing off my first work placement in a nursery and passing it with flying colours ?, I went onto my next work placement as part of my course and its in a primary school and it’s the same with this placement, but before me and two other students went to the other placement, we had a unit three exam to do and once we finished off the unit three exam, we got on the bus and headed over to our next work placement in the afternoon, due to the exam being held in the morning. As we arrived at our second work placement, we signed in at the entrance, were given badges and was told to take a seat at the waiting area for the deputy head to give us introduction of the school.

We were then escorted to her office to take about the procedure of e school, how it works within the school system and who we can ask if we had any concerns about anything or anyone within the school. After we completed the introduction, it was time to find out which classroom are we going in, there were only three opinions that were given to us and they are: go into either reception, year 1 or year 2 ?. I ended up taking on year 2 and the other students have taken year 1 and reception. Once that’s done, we were then taken over to the classrooms that we’ve chosen to go and the classroom that I went was not what I expected at all.

It started of with the teaching assistant from one of the classrooms introducing me to the classroom with a teacher and was told to sit in the classroom with the children and to keep an eye on them if they are misbehaving within the teaching as well as making sure that they are listening what they are saying. I even have to escort them to the assembly hall similar to what I did for my work experience with the special needs primary school back when I was in year 10. From February 2009 till June 2009 is when I finished my second work experience/placement in order to complete my CACHE Level 2 in childcare and education which it wasn’t easy at all, because during the Easter holidays I was making sure that the tasks that need to be done for next term of the school academic criteria including sharpening pencils, making sure that there are the same amount of pencil crayons and pencils in each compartment and put up display boards for the school to see what the kids have done.

Once I finished off my second placement there, passing it with flying colours, I then continued with my studies and even completing tests in which I failed from the first time round and eventually from that point I passed those three tests and they are the literacy, application of number and IT. I even went on to complete the assessments that were provided from college and from that point I passed everyone of them except one exam and that was the unit three exam ?. I eventually finished off all the assessments and finished of college in June. From that point I already failed the unit three exam the first time round and then I failed it again for the second time round ?.

I’ve got so much love and experience on working in a primary school though that in fact it was so good that I decide to stay even longer to continue with it as voluntary and I went from working in year 2 to reception in which that group that was dealing with a younger age group and believe me it was quite a change from working with 6-7 year olds all the way over to dealing with 4-5 year olds ?. Doing my voluntary experience working with children, I was also doing my GCSE resit in English that happened on a Monday evening in order for me to increase my chances on getting a higher grade for my GCSE English from that point it was all looking good though and they even did the exam go for the GCSE resit and I had to do a resit for the unit three exam back at the other college and of course I failed on the third attempt ?.

However there has been some good news coming from my college studies and that is that I passed my GCSE resit English with flying colours I finally got the grade that I needed to gain from having to do the GCSE resit English, from having a grade D from my resit in English to having a grade C ☺️ and I was thrilled with the result that I even showed it to my mum who was waiting patiently for my result and she was thrilled with the result too.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my continued teen life in college blog. Please stay tuned for the next post which is my work life as a Teaching Assistant (TA) and don’t forget to leave a comment below on my blog post and spread the word out about my blog too. ???

My teen life in college

Hi everyone and welcome back to my blog, today’s blog will be on my teen life in college, which includes what I’ve studied in college, the assignments that I have to do in college, the work experience and the expectations that was provided from college and the challenges that I have to face along the way in college.

When I first went to college I was really nervous I really didn’t know what i’ve got myself into. However I was reassured by great lectures that actually help me out though achieve my qualification as best as they can. I was fortunate enough to go to a college that helps with special-needs, in which I actually have and it helped me go through my studies within childcare and education and to top it all off though they also give out in level one qualifications in IT literacy and application of number. When I first studied in college was on sleep deprecation and cognitive development, from that part alone, I was already interested to learn even more on childcare and education ?.

There were some exams in there that you have to do including unit three exam which actually takes up the main part of the course that can separate you from either passing or failing the course, but it’s a handwritten exam and to top it all off, there’s even more exams to go though, but that’s only alright they were on the computer and the subjects doing it in IT, literacy and application of number.

From my studies in college, I’ve learned quite a lot on childcare and education including child development, health and safety within a childcare environment, types of play, the motor skills, theorists of play, the kinds of policies and procedures that are within the environment, the celebrations across the world and even on how to deal with certain kind of behaviour that can occur from children as well.

On November 2008, I had my first work placement in a childcare environment was held in a nursery. Myself and two other students were in the staff room, listening to the manager of the nursery on how the nursery works and their procedures within the environment and where we were going to be placed in order for us to know in where we are going to be in and even have to swap ourselves round in order to get a different experience on working with children in different age groups too. Some lasted a day and some only lasted for a few minutes, depending on the situation of the nursery.

I was in the room where the 12-18 month olds are and there were about 8 babies in the room and I was really nervous about working around with babies, because I literally didn’t know on what I got myself into and I never dealt with babies before ?. As time went by, I’ve learned so much from working in a nursery and even had a great experience on dealing with babies, toddlers and with the 4-5 year olds.

During my placement in the nursery, I was going through an assessment and I was being observed by my tutor in childcare and education. The responsibility that I had to do is feed a 12-18 month old baby and I was doing the up and down motion in order to cool the food down and feed it to them. I repeated the motion multiple times and while I was feeding him, the baby started to fall asleep in front of me while I was feeding him (aww ?) luckily the nursery nurses have asked me to feed another baby since the first one fell asleep.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my teen life in college blog. Please stay tuned for the next post which will be my continued teen life in college, don’t forget to leave a comment below on my blog and spread the word out about my blog too. ???

My continued teen life

Hi everyone and welcome back to my blog, today’s blog will be on continuing on my teen life in secondary school, continued studying, going through the transaction from sixth form into college and even made a sacrifice of giving up music which literally changed my life forever ?, so grab a snack and get comfortable, because this blog is going to be a long one.

After going from year 9 to year 10 of secondary school, I ended up learning to health and social care at a foundation level (I’m not talking about the make up wise ?) all the work and tasks that were provided to me and the others was truly based on coursework and no exams at all, which is great meaning there was less pressure on us ?.

I ended up taking five GCSE and they are English, Maths, Science, Food Tech and Music (Great subject to study ever ?) however majority of my time was spent on studying health and social care, from making posters and leaflets into making PowerPoint presentations clearly based on health and social care as well as answering the questions that were provided in the coursework. and what made it worse is that GCSE music lessons were held after school ?.

I did however manage to continue with the vocal lessons, even through year 10 and year 11, I kept going throughout the years and I even had to do the vocal exam as well and I passed on my vocal exam which is awesome ? as for English, maths and science though which was a lot more harder than I had anticipated from the years 10 and 11. Maths for me was really a lot more harder that because you’re to work out a lot more than just adding and subtracting, it’s also on the maths equations that needed to be completed as part of studying secondary school.

During my time in year 10 I had to go to work experience and I was told to work in a charity shop and was then told over to another shop which I had no idea where is truly based in so I spent one day in school as normal and was then told to work in a special-needs primary school which is the same school I went to for primary school what I did my work experience was that I had to help with the children with their work get the room prepped and even escort them to the assembly hall.

Also within my work experience I had to fill in the booklet which was part of the task what I did on work experience, which was provided by the secondary school that must be completed every time you finish off your day of work experience. From that moment I realised that the I want to become a teaching assistant I decide to work in education was really my ideal role after being told by the teachers that going in the field of music is not the ideal career aspiration ?. I had a really good time and I’ve learnt so much within my work experience.

By the time I reached up to year 11, there is even more work to go throughout the year and also the bullying actually kept getting higher due to my weight and I literally ignored them and just carried on going forward and altogether I had to do 10 GCSE exams majority of all of my exams were held in the school library in order to help me to concentrate on my exams, except for music because it’s a listening exam and therefore I had to listen to what the question being provided within the exam.

I was doing well on learning on how to play the electric guitar, until my original instructor left school and replaced him with a new instructor and I didn’t get a lesson from the new instructor for 6 1/2 months and when I do get the lesson from him, I had to learn everything all over again, which is even more time-consuming ?.

In sixth form I decided to continue my health and social care in the intermediate level I even did AS Level Study on music. I also did the GCSE resit on English which unfortunately history repeats itself, I even went on to a teacher training course in order to get the experience on being a teaching assistant on a regular basis and every day from Monday to Friday I had to head over to room 14 first thing in the morning to help the students out with their additional needs on English, Maths and Spelling, which is all on ILS (independent learning support) being completed on the computer.

In April 2008, I have to make a sacrifice that literally changed my life forever and that is to give up studying music to avoid redoing my AS-level music and go to college and to do some thing else with my life ?. The reason on why I was told to go to college is because the teachers wanted me to move on with my life and told me that re taking AS Level music would be history repeating itself. I felt heart broken when I received the news that I wasn’t able to continue with my AS Level music and what made it worse in sixth form is that after telling my friends about me being autistic, one person decided to research about it on Wikipedia about and read about it in front of my friends instead of accepting it like a human being ?.

However there is a positive to all of this and that is I managed to finish off my intermediate level in health and social care in June 2008 from completing all of my coursework before the end of June and gained a qualification in the subject along with the experience on helping out other students out with their work, both additional support and classroom wise too and that is something to be grateful on ?.

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my teen life blog. I’m so sorry for this blog post being so long. Please stay tuned for the next post which will be continuing my teen life in college, don’t forget to leave a comment below on my blog and spread the word out about my blog too. ???

My teen life

Hi everyone and welcome back to my blog, today’s blog will be on my teen life which includes my experience with going through secondary school from year 7 to year 11 and even through sixth form as well. I will telling you on the ups and downs that I went through from having a hard time with my studies including maths and physical education into falling in love with music and how it grew from that point onwards.

My life in secondary school was pretty much like a roller coaster, there are so many ups and downs in life, from getting bullied at school truly based on my appearance and mocking me on a diagnosis in sixth form to gaining qualifications and even receiving great achievements both academically and in training too (stay tuned for my kickboxing journey blog ?) and many other experiences that happened to me during my time in secondary school and in sixth form.

From day 1 of secondary school, it was great and nerve wrecking, due to the transformation going from primary school to secondary school as well as being a nightmare, due to moving from one lesson into the next lesson along with being punctual for that particular lesson for every subject (talk about running around like a bunch of chickens ?) it got even harder for me when it reached up to mathematics and PE, due to the fact that I struggled on working out the equations and questions being provided from the textbook in maths.

As for PE, I didn’t feel like I blended in with the group and I even got bullied from being in PE, because in year 9, these two girls right next to me were talking about my appearance saying that I look like a man and were also calling me fat as well and the bulling on my physique didn’t stop there, other students have continued to pick on me on how I look like and I still managed to do well on my studies and I even out studied on some of the students (Ha what goes around, comes around ?)

During my time in secondary school, I discovered my love of music and even ended up taking vocal lessons in a weekly basis since year 8 and I’ve learned so much from my vocals lessons, from expanding my notes to exercising my vocal cords and learning the breathing techniques being provided by the singing teacher at school. By the time I reached up to year 9, my vocals were getting better and I even learned to sing some songs that were provided in the vocal lessons at school.

My love of music grew even more when I started to learn to play the electric guitar when I was in year 10, thanks to the inspiration of Santana, System of a down, Korn and Nirvana. I was doing well on learning the cords and notes on the guitar and I loved it even since. ?

Thank you so much for taking the time to read my teen life blog. Please stay tuned for the next post which will be continuing my teen life, don’t forget to leave a comment below on my blog and spread the word out about my blog too. ???

Welcome

Hi everyone my name is Arveena and welcome to my blog. Here on my blog I will be telling about my life being autistic along with the challenges that I’ve faced throughout the years, ups and downs, the obstacles that were in my journey and how I managed to overcome them as well. So stay tuned for more info. ??