Doug, Thursday, Week 2.

Today was the penultimate day of our work experience, we met Lizzie at Holy Trinity Primary School at 9:30 (although I got lost I got there in the end) where she was doing a workshop about maps. We had to take photos of the class being involved in the workshop and when she gave them and activity to do we went around the room helping out each group. 

After lunch we came back to the office were we sorted through all the photos we took that day.

Alfie Thursday Week 2

Today was the second last day of Mine and Doug's work experience. I hoped for these last two days to be as interesting and fulfilling as they possibly could be. This day was definitely one of the best, starting it of was another workshop but in a completely new school. We helped Lizzie carry out an all new workshop showing young children how Hackney has changed over the years, this was an interesting morning and I even learned a few things myself.

The second part of the day consisted of me and Doug sorting out and retouching the photos we took during
the workshop. This was a nice easy task and a nice finish to the day.

Doug, Wednesday, Week Two.

Today we were assigned the task of putting leaflets in envelopes, then stamping them with the TBE information and sticking on an address. We made about 150 envelopes, we then took them down to The Learning Trust branch under the Hackney library where they would be posted off to all the different schools.

After lunch we came back to the office and were told we needed to find a certain map amongst the hundreds of maps that were there. Alfie and I found it after a lot of searching and also found the certain street they were looking for (although it was called something different because the map was so old).

Not the most exiting of days but I enjoyed because we got McDonalds for lunch :)

Alfie Wednesday week two.

My day started of with me and Doug having to send t least 120 letters to different schools advertising some of the workshops. This was a long task but was very satisfying when we where finished. This led us all the way up to lunch and after we had another laborious task to complete.
We came back form lunch only to find ANOTHER pile of maps we had to sort through. Our task was to find a bomb damage map that had a certain road on it. This being seventy years ago it was allot harder than you think and it took a good to hours of research and endless searching to find the right road on the right map.
Although the tasks where challenging it was still another good day and I believe i accomplished allot from it.

Alfie sixth day.

On my sixth day of work experience I showed up and was told that I needed to make more leaflet designs for various workshops, started working as soon i sat down and the end result was two nice looking leaflets (in my opinion).
After lunch i headed back to the office and for the rest of the afternoon i did little tasks such as cutting out squares of card and overall i was just helping out some of the staff. It was not the most exciting day but it was still worth it and i stilly enjoyed the day very much.

Doug, Monday, Week 2

Today, me and Alfie arrived to find the office door locked with no-one inside. We looked around but none of our colleges were to be seen. After a while, Nicole turned up and informed us that everyone else was held up, so we waited until they did.

Once we were inside the office we started work on the design for our school flyers, this brought us up to
lunch.

When we got back it was another hour or two of listing and labeling maps... Oh well.

Alfie fifth day.

This morning me and doug arrived to work with no one there. We waited for a few minutes until one of the staff showed up. They opened the door setting of an alarm making us have to wait for another good half an hour. When we finally got in we designed a leaflet for one of the workshops the company does.
This filled up the rest of the tie before lunch and when we got back we started on sorting out another large pile of maps.
This finally led up to me writing this blog and then to the end of the day. This was one of the more interesting and creative days of my two weeks of work experience.

On my second day here at The Building Exploratory I was told that they wanted to get primary schools in Brent involved in their workshops for small children. Therefore, me and Alfie created a database which included a list of the schools in that area, the Headteachers names and various other information they needed.

After lunch, we came back here to get to work on listing and labeling all the maps they have and categorizing them (A rather tedious job but someone has to do it, right?).

The next morning we assisted with the Senior Bees workshop (Mainly pouring tea and handing out biscuits), where the was a presentation on towers. I found it fairly interesting and learned a bit as well, after the old folk had left we cleared up and went to get lunch.

I have enjoyed my first week here at The Building Exploratory and hope next week will be even better.
Peace out.

Alfie third and fourth day

On my third day of work experience me and doug started the morning of by making a data base of all the schools in Brent. This is so the Building exploratory could tell them about the workshops they do throughout many schools in London. This was not a very challenging task but it wasn't the most exciting job to complete and I was happy to be able to go outside and get some fresh air for lunch.
The second part to the day consisted of me and Doug sorting out the hundreds of maps that the Building exploratory keep in there office. This job also took up allot of time but it was very interesting seeing all of the old maps and comparing London from now to when it was allot older.

The first part of the fourth day consisted of me and Doug helping out the Senior Bees. These are a group of older people who travel around London with one of the BE staff looking into architecture and the history of it. We got to meet all of them and they where happy to let us sit with them and talk about different types of towers all around the world. This was an interesting experience and i got to look into some of the things the senior bees do when they meet together. Overall it was a good two days and it was a brilliant way to finish of the week.

Dougs First Day

My first impressions of The Building Exploratory office space was was a light open plan area, I met most of the staff straight away and they were very welcoming towards me and Alfie. We were then taken on a short tour of the place and I was very impressed by all the displays around the room, which included a small model of a nearby tower block.

Then Janet gave us a quick introduction as to what goes on here and some of the workshops they have to offer. After this, we went onto the computers to get some first hand research done.

This brought us up to lunchtime, when we got back it was straight of to Orchard Primary School to assist in the "Building Bridges" workshop that was taking place. We met with Lizzie who was teaching the workshop, she wanted us to help out the kids and take photos for The Building Exploratory website. On this experience I learnt that to be a successful primary school teacher you need to be fun, make the kids laugh and be engaged in the task at hand.

After that it was a short walk home for me.

Alfie second day.

On the second day of work experience i went into the same school but to work with year threes this time. The workshop was called "printing planets" and the idea of it was to not only teach the year threes about our solar system but to let them have fun with the creative side of it as we made painted planets. In this workshop i learned how challenging it can be supervising years threes with paint and rollers but i also learned how you make something like that fun and interesting for people as young as the age of seven.

Alfie first day

My first interpretation of the working space as I walked in was that it was very open and light. I like this about most places and this gave me a good feeling about what I was going to do over the next two weeks. I was introduced to all the friendly staff and I was then shown around the office and told what sort of things they do around here in the specifics.

We where told what each member of staff does here and we where asked what sort of things we are interested in. We then had a quick look on the website and by then it was lunch.

The second half of the day consisted of travelling to a primary school and observing a bridge-making workshop. This gave me an insight into how the building exploratory interests children in what they do and how they make it fun for most ages. After helping out with some of the groups for an hour or so it was the end of the day and after finishing the bridges I head home.