UNISON Ulearn Northern Ireland

I left school at 16 with no qualifications, and started working in a bakery. My brother worked in the Trust and heard about a cleaning job and told my mother. She said that I’d be interested, without even asking me and sent me to the interview, which to my amazement I passed and got a phone call to start work the next day. That was 25 years ago!

I had been here quite a while when I got some information on a UNISON Return to Learn course. I only really went along because my friend was interested because she thought it might support her to help her kids with their homework. But when I heard about the course, I thought this might be my second chance at learning.

The course was great, we had to do different assignments and I wrote mine on eating disorders. I went to the library and read lots of people’s stories. I interviewed the manager of the Ross Thomson mental health ward. Even though I worked in the same place every day, I thought he might not do it because he was a manager and me a cleaner. But he was very good, it was very fascinating and he gave me a lot of his time. I also spoke to the hospital dietician, and it was very interesting to hear different aspects of the whole eating disorder issue. Doing Return to Learn gave me confidence to read, I now love reading and read books all the time, I never did before.

When we moved to the new hospital, staff were offered the chance to move. I had been cleaning for 19 years and was ready for a change. I am interested in catering, I actually had had the opportunity of doing a catering course when I was young, but took the job instead because it was important to be earning. I always did lots of baking at home and thought that moving to the kitchens would be for me. But when I started I didn’t enjoy it one bit, the change of job was a shock, it wasn’t what I expected. I didn’t feel competent and equipped to do the job. But as my catering skills grew, I did get more confident and started to enjoy the job. Then we got offered to do a course which combined the NVQ , essential skills and IT. Even after my Return to Learn, I still had problems with spellings and with computers I didn’t even know how to switch one on. When I started the course, I really took to the computers and went out and bought myself a second hand laptop. We did the course during work time on a Friday afternoon and I couldn’t wait to get home and practice on the computer. When we finished the course, the group wanted to do something else, so we took on the essential skills numeracy in our own time. We’ve finished that and are currently waiting on the results. If I get a Level 2, it’s the same as having GCSE Maths, which might help me in the future.

All the learning I’m doing has given me a real buzz to continue on and see what I can do next.