Teaching and Education student explains why placement is so rewarding

"The opportunity to undertake placements as part of the course remains a highlight for me. Combining what I learnt through lectures and seminars with real world experiences brought the two together leading me to greater understanding. We talk a lot about real life application of what we discuss, placements showed me that it was not as always straight forwarded as it may seem and showed how professionals confronted these issues.

Choosing our own placements seemed daunting at first but with the help of the placement team I have had varied experiences. Working with an academic from the university I had the chance to explore how learning can be made more interactive through developing activity packs that were cross-curricula surrounding hydroponics.

During my placement with a council’s Educational Welfare and Exclusions team I was part of multi-agency working, which had been a prominent discussion during lectures. Being able to see in practice what we had discussed brought a different element to it that I was able to reflect on and use going forward. This placement was extremely varied, working with schools, pupil referral units, children missing education, home education and looked after children. This one placement presented such a large variety of work that I was not aware even existed. It proved to be an eye-opening experience, tough at times but very rewarding. It reassured my passion for the industry.

For my final placement I worked with a voluntary uniformed organisation to round out my experiences. All three of presented different opportunities that let me further explore my areas of interest. I looked forward to placements and found them valuable for putting what I had learnt into practice as well as the networking prospects that were interweaved."