{"id":18910,"date":"2021-08-16T09:19:49","date_gmt":"2021-08-16T08:19:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ounews.co\/?p=18910"},"modified":"2021-08-16T09:19:49","modified_gmt":"2021-08-16T08:19:49","slug":"ou-student-awarded-mbe-for-supporting-vulnerable-children-through-the-pandemic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/student-stories\/ou-student-awarded-mbe-for-supporting-vulnerable-children-through-the-pandemic\/","title":{"rendered":"OU student awarded MBE for supporting vulnerable children through the pandemic"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Open University student Aimee Durning first volunteered at her son\u2019s playgroup, she never imagined it would be the first step in her teaching career. Or that she would one day receive an MBE as part of the Queen\u2019s Birthday Honours List.<\/p>\n

Aimee, who is half-way through her OU Education Studies (Primary) degree<\/a>, has spent 15 years working as a Teaching Assistant and supporting children with special educational needs. Now working as Director of Inclusion and Community at University of Cambridge Primary School, Aimee has received special recognition for supporting children and families through the pandemic:<\/p>\n

\u201cThroughout the COVID crisis, we were relentless in our drive to make sure everyone had what they needed,\u201d Aimee explains. \u201cWe just wanted to make sure we were meeting children\u2019s needs at home as well as in school.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe made sure that our vulnerable families were looked after and created food hampers for Christmas and Easter half-term and kept checking in with everyone. So we set up a community newspaper to bridge the gap between home and school as we had about 120 children in school and 310 at home, so we needed to make sure people felt connected.<\/p>\n

\u201cThough the Government kept saying \u2018schools are closed\u2019, they weren\u2019t! Teachers, teaching assistants, admin staff \u2013 they\u2019ve all not stopped working for 18 months. It\u2019s been a very tricky time.\u201d<\/p>\n

A passion for teaching\u00a0<\/strong><\/h3>\n

Part of the MBE nomination focused on Aimee\u2019s continued efforts to champion the work of Teaching Assistants. She recently set up a national network, with Dr James Biddulph, to share best practice, create networking opportunities, and to power up the profession. It was her passion for learning new things that first sparked Aimee\u2019s decision to study with the OU:<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone in the school is working as educators on an equal sort of setting, where we all have a role to play with children\u2019s education. The adults in our school are learning as well, through a programme of continued professional development. This learning inspired me to learn more about primary education and choose the OU.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause I love my job so much, I couldn\u2019t think about not working. I needed something that I could do alongside my work, which enabled me to work and study at the same time.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cStudying part-time is great. I know six years is a long time to dedicate to something, but as the module is just October to May, you just have to tell yourself that you\u2019ll be busy for those months. You have to make tiny adjustments to your life so you can study and do everything else as well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Not only are Aimee\u2019s studies helping her develop as a Teaching Assistant, she\u2019s also able to share what she learns with colleagues across the school.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are so many things I\u2019ve been able to take to the team and say, \u2018I read about this at the weekend!\u2019 So my studies and reading are feeding into everything I do at school. To be honest, it\u2019s been wonderful.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018I now know I can do it\u2019<\/strong><\/h3>\n

After struggling in her own school days, returning to higher education is helping Aimee to overcome those personal barriers:<\/p>\n

\u201cI now know I can do it. And unless you have a go, how do you know you can\u2019t do it? It\u2019s just putting yourself out there really. I had a really disappointing mark early on in this module and to be honest, I wasn\u2019t that annoyed about it because I knew I\u2019d given it 100% and I had my own personal learning from that block. So even though I hadn\u2019t written it well within the TMA (Tutor Marked Assignment), I still passed. It didn\u2019t knock me back because the goal was that I\u2019ve learnt something and that my learning helps children in school.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cThe point of studying is to acquire new knowledge, so if you\u2019ve done that, but still haven\u2019t got the mark, surely you\u2019ve still got what you want? That\u2019s how I saw it, rather than being hung up on the percentage, learning is so much more than that. I think that\u2019s the focus, because students do get put off when they get a bad mark, but just think: What did I learn? Have I retained something? If you have, great.\u201d<\/p>\n

Take the plunge and go for it <\/strong><\/h3>\n

For anyone thinking of studying with the OU, Aimee has the following advice:<\/p>\n

\u201cTake the plunge! Don\u2019t be nervous and just go for it. Initially, in my past academic struggles, I thought \u2018blimey, will I be able do this?\u2019 But because the first two years of OU study, level one, are set out so well and the academic side is so well presented, you have so many opportunities to practice. I think it\u2019s perfect for people wanting to study and work at the same time. You can choose how much time you are able to give.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cWhat you receive from the OU is definitely value for money, as your tutor is always there if you need them and there are always students to connect with on the forums. So you are never alone!\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Open University student Aimee Durning first volunteered at her son\u2019s playgroup, she never imagined it would be the first step in her teaching career. Or that she would one day receive an MBE as part of the Queen\u2019s Birthday Honours List. Aimee, who is half-way through her OU Education Studies (Primary) degree, has spent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":18913,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[862,1525,1640,1643,2146],"class_list":["post-18910","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-student-stories","tag-faculty-of-wels","tag-news-home","tag-ou-home","tag-ou-news","tag-students"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18910\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18913"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}