Tomorrow, I will get the results of my BTEC in national health and social care at West Suffolk College.
We have been given a phone number we can call tomorrow and someone will tell us our results.
I am as confident as I can be. The logical part of me knows it will be alright, but there is still that shadow of doubt. It is about having that confirmation. The worry for me is getting into university. I have a conditional offer from the University of East Anglia.
A lot of my friends have deferred their university place, but I really want to get going. It would just be a year waiting for what I want to do.
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When the government put everyone into lockdown, we were all sent home and just stopped going to college. That was really abrupt. One day we were in, and the next we were not. There was a hope we could come back and have some sort of real completion, but, as it turned out, that didn’t happen. We had four assignments left to do, and we were able to write those at home and have them graded online.
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The change in studying from home was difficult. It was very difficult not having the support of the tutors. I don’t know if the college could have done anything differently – it was really supportive and kept us informed. I have received frequent wellbeing checks from a dedicated team at my college. My tutors have kept in contact via email and weekly video calls to ensure that I was confident and up to date with the assignments.
I tend to ramble a lot and go on and on, and the tutors would normally rein me back. At home, it was harder to stay focused on the subject matter. I found it difficult to research topics as well – to decide what sources to trust. But having access to Pearson textbooks and other websites made self-learning much easier.
Luckily, we had finished the placements that are part of the course by the time the pandemic hit and so that was not affected. Having experienced and learned so much about the healthcare sector along the way, it has given me a fantastic basis on which to start university.
Before the pandemic, I worked in a nursing assistant role at my local hospital, mainly working in A&E and the acute assessment unit. However, the coronavirus increased the amount of pressure that hospital departments face, in addition to large volumes of staff sickness and isolation due to symptoms, and so I have taken on new roles as a rehabilitation assistant and community support worker, using the knowledge gained on my BTEC course. Most recently, I have moved to the medical equipment library, cleaning and maintaining specialist medical equipment needed on hospital wards. As we move back to normal operations, I have returned to my job as a nursing assistant.
I personally am not too bothered about how people view BTECs compared with other qualifications, but I am conscious that people traditionally see A levels as the route to higher study. It is overlooked that BTECS are actually equal to an A level. Not a lot of people know that, and many are surprised that I am going to university from a college course.
When I finish the three-year university course, I will be a fully qualified paramedic. Once qualified, I will start by working on ambulances. However, my career might take me on to air ambulances or working in A&E or critical care departments.
Jonathan Hammond is a BTEC student at West Suffolk College. He is 18 and from Bury St Edmonds
