Hi everyone and welcome back to my blog and today’s blog post will be on my work experiences since leaving work in a primary school and I’ve got so much to tell you on what I’ve been through ever since I left, I will be telling you the experiences that I went through going through the job centre and the experiences that I went through during my time there and my inspiration to change career path from being a teaching assistant into becoming a mentor/coach, so grab a snack ? and get comfortable ?, because this blog post is going to be a long one.
Ever since I left working in a primary school in December 2010, I decided to go on Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA) so I can look for work and I get paid at the same time, unfortunately there are some obstacles along my way and when I was on Jobseeker’s Allowance, one of those things happened within the experience is that they swapped me around for every six months. For example if you sign in downstairs and you tell them what you been up to in the past two weeks and you told them the amount of jobs you applied for and they will tell you when you are going to get paid.
If you were about the sign in on that week and you told them the reason why you did not apply for any jobs whatsoever, because you had to revise for an exam that you’re trying to gain a qualification in that sector or having issues at home/going through some personal problems in life, that means you will be given a letter that will take you to another building where you have to listen to the people who work at the job centre telling you the importance on signing in on a regular basis as well as applying for jobs and the essential part on filling in the book.
The book that I was given by the job centre was clearly based on what jobs that I applied for, the time and date that you applied for, what will be the next action for you do and when will you find out about the outcome of it too. Along with applying for jobs is also the management to apply for it, i.e applying for it online or by hand with the application form and even in some cases that you have to provide evidence to prove to them that you applied for the job along with the outcome of it too ?.
After applying for a number of jobs as a teaching assistant and gaining no success for applying nor getting the actual job, however I did managed to get through to interviews, I even went through to teaching agencies in order to increase my chances on finding work but unfortunately I received no luck and the biggest problem I have though was finding references especially the work reference from back then the deputy headmistress who had a no nonsense approach and she never even gave me a chance to speak for myself at all ? the kind of treatment that I was given by her was outrageous and shocking too.
During my time at applying for jobs I also went to a company called Sencia that helped me increase my chances of getting a job and even in some cases I even had some interviews from agencies and even got some advice and guidance there on how to update on my curriculum vitae (CV), the hints and tips on going through to an interview as well as the courses that are provided by them in order to increase my chances of finding work. Unfortunately in that case it didn’t last long and I went back to the job centre and they also gave me a letter to go over to the job shop and listen to what the workers have to say on this upcoming reasons why we couldn’t get any work and I was given a letter to attend a course from the job shop and the name of the course and was given the time and date to start the course.
I went onto a course that was provided by the job shop and the company was called Beyond 2030 and what I was learning from them was level 1 in employability and from that point on, my life has changed completely and I realised that I wanted to become a mentor/coach instead of a teaching assistant and I felt really great and astonished about making this career change. I was given the advice about learning to do PTLLS (Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector) which is now changed into AET (Award in Education and Training).
I even told the job centre about making a career change and the reaction that I got from them was a negative one and they started questioning about my career change and was not even looking at it in a positive prospective point of view ?. Despite the negative reaction that I have received from them, I still decided to follow my career aspiration on becoming a mentor/coach and I remained positive from that point even though it didn’t guarantee me a job, but I still gained the experience that I wanted to have on what it’s like to become an assistant mentor.
Thank you so much for taking the time to read my other work experiences blog. Please stay tuned for the next post which will be other work experiences being continued and don’t forget to leave a comment below on my blog post and spread the word out about my blog too. ???