Back to being a PA at a large secondary school in Halesowen. I support the Headteacher and work with the Leadership Team, organising (lots of) meetings, preparing correspondence and managing the school policies.This job has a huge marketing focus, which is a new challenge for me. It includes making sure the school website is up to standard, including writing informative news blogs to showcase what the school is doing. I also manage the school Twitter, which I love doing, again showcasing the school and our activities and creating fun and engaging posts. I am learning all about local press advertising, and also our main marketing tool - the school prospectus! I have organised film and photography shoots, and have a massive input in the display around school. Our focus is to be world class!

I had about eight weeks in this role before lockdown started, and then everything went virtual! I engaged with businesses, industry and local employers to build contacts and form partnerships. This included planning, organising and delivering employer breakfast networking meetings and updating employers about our activities through a termly newsletter. It was great to bring in new employers to work with the Academy and get to meet new people, even online! I also devised and created a half termly newsletter for students and parents with careers information and news.I worked with Year 13 students on their career path after sixth form, whether that be to find an apprenticeship, a job or apply to university, and I supported students with the UCAS application process including proofreading personal statements and guiding them on what they should include. It was so rewarding to find that a student I had helped had managed to get themselves an apprenticeship! I helped organise work experience placements for Year 10 and Year 12 students, and then moved onto researching and collating the many virtual placements that became available due to the pandemic. This was a massive success and many of our students got to experience virtual placements and were still able to have that contact with employers and the world of work. I also planned a set of lessons about careers exploration for Year 9 students which were delivered by teachers as part of a rotation of project work for the year group, creating PowerPoint slides on different topics such as dream jobs, apprenticeships, university, using Unifrog and social media awareness. This is something I loved doing, researching, creating slides and making the sessions fun and engaging for the students with quizzes and puzzles to help them learn.

I supported the Headteacher of the Academy for around six years. As you can imagine, I did all the usual things a PA would do - organising meetings, diary management, producing correspondence and presentations, monitoring expenses and acting as a “gatekeeper”. Oh, and not forgetting that all important coffee throughout the day!Working in a school means that no one day is the same, and I am excellent at adapting and moving from one task to another and then back again. I'm a proactive person, a problem solver and a post-it note lover.I had contact with a wide range of people on all levels; teaching staff, senior managers, governors, parents and students. I'm a friendly approachable person, so have no problem communicating with anyone.I prepared all the admin for recruitment of staff and HR issues. Teacher recruitment was very difficult and sometimes I had to think outside the box with regards to advertising. All in all, I was the go to person for everyone at the Academy. Any problems or questions then people came to me. I couldn't always help them, but I always knew who could!

I worked here for eight years in a team of Student Recruitment Officers booking them visits to schools, travel and accommodation, producing newsletters, researching competitors and organising events.My biggest achievement in this role was project managing the Birmingham UCAS Higher Education Convention which was held at the University on three occasions. I love organising events so jumped at the chance to be the lead administrator for this event. I had never done anything on this scale before - we had 200 exhibitors, 12,000 students on campus, two exhibition halls and a schedule of seminars over the two days. It was so exciting to have this opportunity and experience and I felt so proud of what I had achieved.

I provided administration support to medical and clinical staff including arranging work schedules, preparation for meetings and events, and copy and audio typing of medical reports. I inputted medical results and data on to blood donor records and was a point of contact for blood donors and health care professionals.