Today honestly felt like three days in one! We started the day at Joseph Chamberlain Sixth Form College, then we ventured to the botanical gardens and then after what felt like days, it was finally time to give our presentations.
Joseph Chamberlain Sixth Form College is a college for students that immigrated to England from other countries or students who aren’t very proficient in English. When we got to the Chamberlain College, we all had to get visitor ID badges, and we were accompanied by a staff member throughout the duration of our stay. We couldn’t even go to the bathroom by ourselves! Joseph Chamberlian College takes safeguarding very seriously. To the extent that they only have one entrance and many securities guards spread throughout the grounds. They take safeguarding very seriously because they want to keep the outside noise from impacting the success of their students. Basically, they are creating a safe space so that their students have the capacity to thrive. This got me thinking about the level of security in my High School. They definitely don’t take it as seriously as Joseph Chamberlian College does. I wonder what would have happened if my High School did take greater precautions when it comes to student security and well-being. Perhaps we wouldn’t have to worry about doing various safety drills, like an active school shooter one or a lockdown one and school could have a just been a safe place that gave us the capacity to reach our full potential. We were given a tour of the school by Tom. On this tour we got to see their nursing skills labs and it looked very similar to the one we have at the University of Pittsburgh. It was amazing getting to see all the resources that Joseph Chamberlain school provides for their students. You can really get the feeling that they want each and every one of their students to succeed and go one to be successful. It was refreshing to see that. I also got the opportunity to sit in on a class. One big thing I noticed was the size of the classes. There were maybe fifteen students in this class and this genuinely shocked me. My High School classes typically had between thirty and thirty-two students. Due to our large class sizes, it was harder to build relationships with the teachers or get personalized feedback that can help you improve. While I was observing the class, it was very clear that this teacher, Patrick, new his students, including each of their strengths and weaknesses. Personally, I think I would have thrived better with smaller class sizes and more personalized feedback. We also got learned about their adult education program. One aspect of this program that specifically stood out to me was their attention to ESOL and strengthening the English proficiency of those individuals who can’t speak English or speak very little English. This program stood out to me because you don’t really hear about these types of programs in the States. One thing we learned is while there is a high demand for these classes, these programs are rare. In the UK, specifically, this is troublesome because of the introduction of the White Paper for Immigration, which will stricken the requirement of English proficiency for migrants. It is important to note that these individuals can’t apply for these ESOL programs until they have been a UK resident for at least three years. This really surprised me because we don’t really talk about these programs in the States, so I wasn’t even aware that they existed!
Before our presentations, we stopped by the botanical gardens. It was a nice way to relax before the presentations! The botanical garden reminded me of the Phipps Conservatory in Pittsburgh. It was so pretty!
Next came the dreaded presentations! I was really nervous about giving my presentation today because a part of me felt like I was going into it unprepared as I didn’t have as much time to prepare for it as I would have liked. I was also nervous about presenting in front of people I didn’t really know. Despite all the nerves, I was really proud of the presentation my group gave. All the groups did so well! It was very clear that everyone knew what they were talking about and really put time into doing their research and collecting information. It was interesting because throughout the lectures we have gotten, I was so in awe of the UK system and how it differs from the US system and seeing those professors have the same reactions to hearing about the US system was interesting. Something that was said during one of the presentations was that we kind of had this assumption that the UK system was better than the US system because they have universal healthcare and therefore don’t have to pay ridiculously high prices to access healthcare. But what we don’t realize, and maybe take for granted, is that we don’t have to wait long periods of time to see healthcare professionals and we don’t have to worry about ambulances taking forever to show up. I think this just shows that one system isn’t necessarily better than the other, they are just so different, and each have their advantages and disadvantages.
That’s all for today! It feels so nice to be done with the presentations!