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Becoming a Speech and Language Therapist

Monthly Archives: July 2017

Roundup of the Year

Uncategorized.

Hello from the poolside in Rhodes, where I’m currently spending some time doing absolutely nothing (and I mean nothing… apart from occasionally half-crawling-half-walking into the snack bar)…but I digress.

Since the last blog, I’ve found out that I’ve passed the year with a 2:1 grade, so averaged about 64%, which I’m pretty happy with. Some of the exams I didn’t do as well as I’d hoped in, and definitely not as well as I did last year overall…. but I’ve also had some time to digest this and realise that with juggling work, studying and other things that happen in life, I’ve done well. I’ve also thought about how exams don’t give you the opportunity to show everything about yourself. Results don’t show how you’ll cope when a child you’re working with discloses something serious. They don’t show how you’ll communicate with a client who is really sick and fed up of being in hospital. They don’t show how well you can think on your feet during a therapy session and adapt an activity to engage a client that you’re meeting for the first time. But this is exactly why we have placements during which practice educators get to see what we’re up to and give us feedback on things like our interaction skills, and also why we get coursework so that we have an opportunity to apply what we’ve learned to a case study or referral, to see how we sift out relevant information and use it with a particular client. And I also know that some people really like exams- I just don’t happen to be one of them.

So what is next? This summer, I’m mainly working on secondary transition summer schools. These are run on behalf of the arts education company that I work for; we spend a week with young people at their new school for September, basically working towards a performance at the end of the week, and in the meantime, there is the opportunity to get used to their new school/teachers/each other. I’ll also be helping to man the phones during clearing after A level results are released- this involves talking to students who are looking for university places that are left over, once the rest have been allocated on grade achievements. It also involves eating lots of cake, so you can see why I’ve signed up for a second year. In between this whole earning-money-to-support-yourself-whilst-studying thing, my brother and my cousin are both getting married, I’ll be heading to Italy to see family in September, and….having a brain break, ready to take on next year. From what we hear, second year of SLT is the most intense. And I’m really glad to have come through.

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