When I wrote my last blog article in 2016 I hadn't planned to park this site. It just kind of happened that way. My youngest was barely a month old, I was trying to impress the powers that be while acting up with a colleague on maternity leave, and I'd stood down as Trustee for PlaceNet in lieu of increased professional and personal responsibility.
In the intervening years, I haven't really felt compelled to write. The eagle eyed amongst you who have followed my Twitter account over the years, will have seen a cryptic pinned message, which followed an incident with the thought police, who considered my social media presence at odds with my employer. Talk about taking a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
But here I am in April 2020 and for the first time in years I'm writing. And what strange times we find ourselves in. It is bizarre to think that as recently as two weeks ago the schools were still open, placements were still being advertised in good number, and the lockdown had yet to be implemented. Two weeks. Seems like an awful lot longer don't you think?
Like you, I've been going through a period of adjustment. Working from home full time completely at odds with the norm in which WFH was largely frowned upon within my team. Appointments fully switched online/telephone, losing that daily face to face interaction with my colleagues and that unexpected meeting when someone you weren't expecting walks into the office needing my help. Office phone calls diverted to mobile via Jabber. Departmental meetings over Teams. Zoom meetings and webinars. It is only a matter of time before I'll be asked to do Compliance training via Houseparty.
Within the first three hours of homeschooling my kids, I came to realise that failing to get offered a PGCE Primary place in 2002 was the single best thing to ever happen to my career. I'm not a teacher, I don't have the patience or inclination to make exaggerated phonics noises for the letter N. But we are at the end of week 2, and come through relatively unscathed, balancing the demands of the day job with trying to maintain a relatively structured school day for three primary age kids in different key stages. Joe Wicks is a national hero. The world is on its head.
What has struck me most over the past fortnight is the power of community. I've never been the most sociable person in my department. In fact, during an ill-thought through team development session, my personality was publicly shamed as one of the most introverted in a department of 40 people. Big thumbs up to whoever thought that idea was a good way to bring people together.
But after well over a decade of going to the same office five days a week, it is a very strange experience moving to remote working. True I don't have put up with office politics, gossip and the endless supply of birthday cakes in the kitchen, but the loss of community is stark. Sure, you can check in with emails, messages, the occasional phone call, but it is a very different experience from a career of conventional office structure.
It was with great pleasure then that I took up the opportunity to join the ASET Regional Hub South East meeting yesterday morning. I've not been to a physical meeting with them before, in part due to scheduling conflict with school runs, in part due to my previous association with PlaceNet and not wanting to cross the fence. The silliness of tribalism! But as I logged into Zoom yesterday morning, for the first time in two weeks, aside from a few moments of clapping in doorways on a Thursday evening, I felt a tremendous sense of community.
We had 75 industry colleagues joining together to bring a sense of normality to the prevailing madness. Shared issues of adjusting to remote working, concerns about dwindling placement opportunities, how to assist our students currently facing furlough or dismissal, not to mention juggling work with children. I couldn't help but raise a smile watching other attendees have their kids appear in shot every once in a while or try to gatecrash the meeting.
While the meeting progressed I listened in as attentively as I could, while managing Maths and English classes for my boys, catheterising and even managing a game or two of Uno. There is a myth than men can't multitask, but I'd like to think that I'm going some way to destroy it.
What I took away from the meeting was a feeling of pride. That despite the immediate difficulties we face individually, collectively and within student recruitment as a whole, we are a resolute bunch who have seen economic downturn before and come through the other side, who will run through walls to help our students to make the best of a bad situation.
We don't know what the full effect of this global pandemic will be, but I can say with certainty that placement professionals will tackle this issue head on, doing their absolute best for their students.
I was so proud of my industry colleagues. I am proud to be a Placement Adviser. We are all in this together and we will prevail.
