Week 2 in the big BIS house and I already feel that I have been working here for years…
For the past 2 years I have spent my days teaching unruly teenagers and attempting, with all my might, to convince students that full stops do indeed have a purpose in English lessons, ‘ain’t’ is not a real word and Shakespeare is in fact a lot cooler than JLS. Apparently it was an unthinkable crime to use ‘cool’ as opposed to ‘ream’ and so Shakespeare lost the battle!
Despite being very excited about starting a new job, changing direction in careers from education to the world of business was as daunting as my first day of teacher training. Thankfully, the Queen’s Awards team were incredibly welcoming and all of my nerves were relinquished immediately. I joined the team in the busiest period of the Awards process. With the phones ringing of the hook and the emails streaming in thick and fast, I was communicating with entrants within hours and joining in on the team’s excitement for the extremely high calibre of entries that were due to be submitted in this round.
The Queen’s Awards team are by far one of the most enthusiastic and hard working teams I have had the opportunity to work with (and a lot less stroppy than teenagers in the morning). A tight knit group with an unrelenting drive for professionalism and providing outstanding support to award applicants, my experience so far with Linda, Kerry, Sean, Kat, and Kieran has been a very positive and motivating one.
An email that was circulated earlier last week supports my point exactly:
I’ve telephoned the Queen's Awards Office several times in the past week and have been very impressed by the level of service and friendliness.
I would like to say a personal congratulations to the Queen’s Awards team for all their hard work in this particular round. The deadline for entries was on Monday and the team exceeded their targets – this is a result of their excellent media campaigns, customer service and ultimately their drive for success.
I am looking forward to the coming weeks with the team and wish good luck to all of the entrants who have applied for an award in the 2014 Queen’s Awards round!
The hard work continues and plans are now already underway for next year.
In the meantime we are awaiting the return of surveys. We really value your feedback on the entry process and this survey data is integral for improving our guidance notes and ultimately supporting our award entrants in future rounds. Please click on the link below to complete our short entrant survey, which will take no more than 3 minutes to complete:
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