I’ve just finished my post-GCSEs week of work experience at AVUK. I graduated from the charity’s Auditory Verbal therapy programme in late 2004/early 2005 so I thought it would be perfect to go back for work experience, help out and see things there from a different perspective than that of a two year old!

I spent five days in the London office helping out with lots of different things and it was really fun. I enjoyed every day and working with all the people there - everyone was really welcoming.

I helped out with some admin tasks such as filing and typing up sign-up sheets for AVUK’s mailing list which was interesting as you don’t really realise how long some things take until you have to do them yourself (and how hard it is to read some handwriting!). You also don’t realise the satisfaction that comes from completing some of these tasks!

I also did some research relating to specific awareness days for other causes and charities and came up with ideas for things that AVUK could do on those days.

I also did some work on social media and the website - I came up with some ideas for Instagram and even got to do a mini takeover where I did a quiz. This was really fun because it meant I could use social media that I use all the time to help out.

I wrote this blog post and also another one on GCSEs and my experience of them, as well as a few tips for anyone else doing GCSEs. This was also great because the experience was quite fresh in my mind and I got to write about it (and hopefully help anyone doing GCSEs next year!). I also got to make a video with some tips for GCSEs and help edit it, which was really interesting as you don’t realise how long it takes to type out subtitles (spoiler alert: a LONG time). I also enjoyed getting to cut the video because I’m really interested in that.

I did some work where I helped to type up and set up an online calendar for next term’s appointments with the therapists, which was really interesting as there are lots of different things to remember and different categories, colours and calendars which was actually quite fun to do. It was really interesting to see how much work is needed and how much you need to remember for this, as I hadn’t really thought about it that much before!

I also got to sit in on a couple of the therapy sessions and take notes, which was really fun and interesting. It was fun because it made me think more about what kind of things to look for and write down. It was also really cool to see the sessions as a teenager and from a different perspective and see how they work. It was also really interesting to see how much of the therapy is possible to work into everyday life and I really enjoyed it.

Overall it was an amazing week and I had so much fun. I learned a lot about a lot of different things and different aspects of the work staff and therapists do here and it’s made me think a lot more about things I wouldn’t ordinarily notice and also that I might possibly want to work here when I’m older. I would definitely recommend it as a work experience week (or two).