Today was our ninth day in Birmingham! It was super eventful that I felt like it went by in a flash. We started out our day by catching a bus to the Joseph Chamberlain College. Once we arrived, we were greeted by the assistant principle, Tom Williams and we had to get ID photos taken in order to enter the school. Joseph Chamberlain heavily enforces all safeguarding policies such as only having one entrance to monitor who comes in and out of the school and making all guests get guided by a staff member at all times to ensure student safety. I remember learning in a previous lecture that college in the UK is the States version of high school except it is ages 16-19. This school is located in a low socioeconomic area so the students that attend it are of lower incomes. Also, 97% of the students that attend Joseph Chamberlain are Pakistani and Bangladeshi, 75% Pakistani and 22% Bangladeshi. Due to many students being from other countries, English is not their first language so you will find students of a wide range of ages attended to go through ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) which will help increase their literacy and hopefully pass their GCSEs so they can move onto a career or university. Anna Richards is one of the individuals within the school who is involved with their ESOL course. Their course has had high success rates with students showing quick increases in literacy which makes this 3-year college possible to become fully literate in English and pass their GCSEs.
After we left Joseph Chamberlain College we went over to BCU (Birmingham City University) to have lunch at their cantine and then head to the botanical gardens. Once we arrived at the gardens the first thing I did was find the bakery and get a free pastry, I got a blueberry and lemon muffin. Then I sat down in the bakery for the rest of our time at the gardens to finish working on our presentation. I managed to get the rest of my notecards done before we headed back to BCU. Once we arrived back my group and I finished our slideshow and looked over our notecards before beginning the presentations. Then the presentations began, and the first group went who did a fantastic job talking about refugees in healthcare and education. Next up it was my groups turn to go, and we discussed the treatment of multicultural groups in healthcare and education in the UK and US. I thought that our presentation went relatively well, and it was great to have that weight lifted off my shoulders. Finally, the last group who also did great went and talked about the correlation of socioeconomic status in healthcare. After the presentations concluded we rode a bus to Indian Streatery. This was my first time ever having Indian food and I was not too eager to try it based on how picky of an eater I am but with Dr. Marks encouragement I tried various Indian appetizers. Then for my main meal I got the homestyle chicken curry which was okay, but I was not the biggest fan. I concluded overall that Indian food is not for me, but it is not horrible.
Overall, today was an educational but also intense day that I am glad to be done with. Tomorrow, we get to see some of the mental institutes in the area which I am actually really interested in. I am also still super excited for Wednesday when we finally go to London!