A JOB SHADOWING IN LONDON

      

      On Saturday 3rd March I took a plane from Alicante to London-Stansted. It wasnʼt my first time in London but the first time I had had such an experience. I did a Job Shadowing in a Secondary School in London. This modality of Erasmus plus grant offers teachers the opportunity to improve their teaching skills and learn from other educational systems. 

As I arrived at the airport it was, as usual, a rainy day In London but still a beautiful one. The school I attended was Lilian Baylis Technology School. There was a fifteen minutes nice walk from my B & B to the school, located in Vauxhall, close to Westminster.

    These students come from different areas such as Brixton, Camberwell and Peckham, and the vast majority of themare originally black African or black Caribbean so I knew from the moment I arrived at the school that these students need special attention because they come from a very poor background, so poor that they canʼt afford to buy books and material. Itʼs a chance for them to change their lives.

    I attended Spanish lessons, English lessons and special lessons for foreign students and I could see the way teachers work there.

They invest a lot of money in helping students with learning difficulties. There are social workers in the school whose main job is to help those students who donʼt behave well or just donʼt want to study.

    The students need to pass state exams at the end of Secondary school and every lesson, every exam is focused on the GCSE exams. I enjoyed the English lessons as the students were all the time reading aloud, discussing and giving their opinions. These students are very lucky because London offers them the opportunity to go to museums, theatres and from time to time they meet politicians, sports players and important scientists so that they can learn a lot from them.

I may say that all the staff in the school treated me very well and I could take part in the everyday life of the school and feel as if I were one of them.