Work placement Review

I enjoyed my work experience at walker books because the job required me to read a lot which I enjoy doing. In addition to this, I was reviewing the written work- which ones were to be made into books and which weren’t going to make it; throwing them in the bin. Which made me feel like I was a staff member already. Furthermore, I enjoyed helping the manager sort out the her office.

I felt like I fitted into the work environment, having been given lunch everyday. Different staff communicating with me, inviting me to the nearby farm and also they made me feel like family by inviting me to the meeting where they were updating the team with what was still to come in the workplace.

I received full support in the workplace, being told day to day what I had to do and being given a tour of the workplace. Also, I was given full support where needed when I did not understand a task at hand. The team were really amazing at helping out.

I believe that the skills I have developed through walker books will help me with my literature skills as well as my skills in communicating with others and overall English skills. Also, having done the party package organisation for where’s wally and cleaned the office it has also helped me with organisation skills that I can use in life.

It was okay, however some days they did not have anything for me to do (in the evenings) and took a couple of hours to get back to me on what to do or sent me home. On the other hand, they were prepared with tasks each morning. Then again, with lunch they weren’t always telling me the time that lunch was or when to go on break.

The atmosphere was very independent at times which was good at it gave us time to work on our life skills and let us focus on tasks at hand. Then at lunch, for the first couple of days I was by myself until I introduced myself to others and made an effort to go out of my way and talk to others.

They told me what to do when it came to first getting the tasks however after that they were leaving me to do my own thing unless I really needed help. So not much development was needed and we only found out on the days of the meetings that we had to attend them, because I was with another person from my school doing the work placement

At all times, they were making me understand how it was like to work for a book publishing company (especially for them) and they even offered me a job for after I left school. I think this was really useful as it shaped what I wanted to do in the future

The work experience helped me to understand everything that went into the job role of publishing books, and how a book came to be a book. Also, by letting me attend the work meetings it helped me have an understanding on how new ideas are created (for example when and how they came up with the idea of club penguin)

I believe that all of the tasks I was given, having my own desks to work at and seeing how much effort went in to publishing books definitely shaped the future careers I want to do. Also, the content of the books I was given (because of the department I was on) helped me decided wether I wanted to go into publishing or notes

I was not paid or given any fees for the work experience I done, as it was crucial as part of my year 10 work experience in school. However, on my last day of my work experience I was given the choice to get a free book (which I did) and was given a certificate for finishing my work experience.

There were plenty of opportunities to talk to people either in the same room as me, near my office, or in the lunch hall. When, I finally started to talk to people who also worked in the firm I got to go for walks, with them at lunch and went to the farm with them

There was not plenty of events or organised events happening at the time when I was working at the company, other than the work meetings which did not bring plenty of social networking chances. I did however, as said, get to plan days out with the few friends that I made.

There was not plenty of social networking chances that I was told about, the only few papers hanging up were about events for staff to invite books fans too. Also, there was no talk of social events happening- however I was doing my work placement at a time where there wasn’t any special events happening.

I would recommend this insight to friends who were interested in either English as a whole or just reading, since there is a lot of reading involved in this job. As I said, at the time my friend was also working at the company so it would be good for others to work there too if they wanted to. I was actually recommended for this insight by a teacher.