Hi I’m Jason Ho from Cherwell School. The week at Oxfordshire Apprenticeships was fun and meaningful to me. I gained a lot of knowledge out of it.

On Monday, as the freshman to the department, I went to the office sharply at 9 o’clock. Stepping into the office, the working atmosphere warmed me on a chilly Monday morning. Everyone there was nice and helpful.

Sarah helped me on setting up my computer. After everything was set up, I started my first and the most crucial job - making tea for everyone. Clare wanted tea and others wanted coffee. After that I learned about how the department use social media to promote Apprenticeships. They mainly use Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. I gained access to the Twitter and tweeted my first picture. I did not like that picture. But whatever work demands, I deliver.

Mel and I then attended a meeting with Heart FM, looking at using Global’s service to promote Apprenticeships through music streaming applications. The meeting lasted for half an hour but felt like half a century. I learned how marketing has changed nowadays, from posters to direct advertising.

After that, Helen and I went to Oxford City Football Club to do a case study on Sports Coaching Apprenticeships. We met Jake who is doing a Level 3 Sports Coaching Apprenticeship. See some photos. He is really talkative and that helped me a lot on learning about the scheme. He seemed like he enjoys his life now.

I went back to the office to start working on the case study on Jake. That’s most of my first day.

Moving on to Tuesday, it was the Apprenticeship Ambassador training day for the department. Some Apprentices came over to receive training from Sarah and Aoife. I was taking pictures of them, then I joined some of their activities as well. They were very engaged in the activities and I can see they were enjoying the day. After a while I attended a meeting with Clive from the University of Oxford. He is a humorous person and some of the meeting was about jacket potatoes. So we then went back to the room where the ambassadors training was for some jacket potatoes. The meal was very nice and I enjoyed it.

In the afternoon Jenny taught me how to create an infographic with a website. I made one about how much salary people in different jobs earn. Learning how to create an infographic is very useful for me, if I want to present some data in an interesting way, this helps a lot.

On Wednesday, Mel and I went to Oxford Academy to produce a case study on Harry, a Sports Coaching Apprentice with Oxford United Community Trust. The academy has brilliant facilities for football training like an all-weather football ground and astro turf. Harry’s story is interesting and I learned a lot more about sport Apprenticeships. I then took pictures of him with the goal so that I could post the pictures on Twitter and Facebook - see them here.

When we got back to the office, we were late to the department meeting. That was a boring meeting, but I guess that’s what being an adult is like. Luckily, we had a coffee morning with loads of cakes that the staff brought (yay free lunch!). All the staff came together to have a little break and that was fun. I then started writing up the case study for Harry and posted the photos I took online. Paul from Primesite Media came to have a review meeting on the advertisements the department put on. I learned more about advertising through the meeting.

And on Thursday we met up at the Oxford University Sports Ground with Clive to look for the suitable venue for the coming 5-a-side football match. He took us around and that’s the first time I looked around the site. The sports ground we’ve chosen is where Roger Bannister achieved the first-ever sub-four-minute mile. It is also quite meaningful to the department’s scheme as the ground is taken care of by Apprentices. We took some pictures there, Helen and Mel seemed really hyped for the competition.

We went back to the office to get ready for Oxfordshire Apprenticeships Hour, which is an hour where we put loads of tweets on twitter around one topic. As this week is all around sports, I prepared some tweets the day before about sport-related Apprenticeships. The OA Hour went well and I hope it can help someone if they are interested. See a summary of the tweets.

Mel and I then went on a trip to B4 Magazine’s office at Headington. B4’s office is based in a mansion, it must be a comfortable place to work in. The meeting went smoothly and I took pictures of Emma, who designed the logo for the Oxfordshire Apprenticeship Awards, so that we can post pictures of her online.

On the last day I finished off my articles and other work and that’s it for my work experience week. Have a look at my summary of the week on Storify.

This week is meaningful to me as I learned a lot more about working in context. I appreciate everyone’s help. Also, I realise that there are lots of other paths for my future other than going to university. Being an Apprentice may be a good path after school life as more and more companies take people with decent work experience rather than people with good academic results. I will not limit my future just to university but to be more open-minded to other opportunities after this week.