Pastoral support/Administrator Review

I work in a schools student services/pastoral office. I am the administrator in charge of logging sanctions logging on spreadsheets and sending home notifications. I support students with equipment, uniform, general wellbeing and first aid. I also work with parents to provide support to students and with their year teams.

I have improved in confidence and I can now answer phone calls with ease I have worked in the student services/pastoral and the schools main office. I have learnt from my employer a lot about safeguarding and protecting young people and through my employer I have taken a first aid course

I have not enjoyed my apprenticeship. I have enjoyed working with my employer organisation at the school has been incredibly rewarding and I have learnt a lot from the members in the team and they have been incredibly supportive of me on my journey. The apprenticeship itself was difficult I found it was unclear and unsupportive and I already have a degree and have worked independently before but this was much harder

The structure was okay but not organised my tutor cancelled meetings short notice but never provided any reason why. I did not understand the order of topics and it seemed out of place it should be reconsidered what you learn where. The expectations for the EPA should be made clearer by the tutor.

My employer has been very supportive. I struggled adjusting to my work place and found the day could be overwhelming my line manager was an incredible support during my time and I came to her whenever I needed extra support and when I felt I could not continue on the programme she saw me through

I receive the normal support of my monthly tutor meetings outside of this emails where answered occasionally I cna understand they may have lots of people but it things were not solved and when I needed to do British values etc training I had to go outside my tutor to actually access.

I did not find the course content valuable for the job role I was in I was not in an environment where I used the content perhaps if I did the course with a different employer the course content and job role would off overlapped but it did not. It does help encourage you to meet deadlines if this is a new experience.

Members of staff do socialise outside of work but there aren't any specific clubs I know off. We have end of term staff wellbeing where the head teacher would provide food and we could catch up with members of staff and say goodbye to old staff. When I worked in the main office I got to mix with members of the trust during half terms

No

I wouldn't recommend to someone with similar job and life experience as my self as I feel the learning opportunity would not be valuable. However a school leaver with no work experience may benefit as they can work in administration and gain a qualification making them more dserable to employers but they would need t have initiative and discipline to chase their work.

Learn about your employer if you are with the right organisation such as my school you can really learn a lot and they can show you different career pathways perhaps even keep you on for the future. Research all your options and consider if you could commit to 18 months apprenticeship wage or a least a year because you cannot finish earlier than 1 year.