Amanda Rice
I’m a single parent and have three daughters aged 20, 19 and 15. I’ve worked for Nottingham City Council for seven years, currently as a drug and alcohol worker. I left school at 16 with English ‘O’ level and a handful of CSEs but I returned to education in 1995 and started the OU degree in 2005.
Education has been like another world. You get your head into the course and get lost in it. The workload is very heavy and there’s never a moment when I’m not busy. Doing an assignment every month as well as working and being a Mum has been a real struggle. I’ve jumped out of bed at 2 in the morning to write down an idea for an assignment!
The course I got most out of and will help me most in the future, both professionally and in my personal life, was Death and Dying.
Pat and I have supported each other throughout the course. We meet every week to study together and have been able to pull each other through the tough times.
I do sometimes feel guilty for not being 100% the Mum I would like to be. My kids have me as a role model though and they now recognise the value of study and want to continue their own education.
Pat Pullen
I’m a Mum with two grown-up children and I spend a lot of time with my two grandsons too. I’ve worked for social services for 25 years and am now a community care officer. I left school at 15 with no qualifications but, about five years ago, I decided to do an NVQ4 and this became my stepping stone to education at the OU.
Amanda and I started the degree together and we’ve worked side by side until the last placement. The course hasn’t been easy. We’ve had six assignments to do in the last year as well as a placement in a brand new environment and, despite the experience we’ve got, it really is a challenge.
The OU is designed for working people. The tutorials are supportive and our tutors have been online to support us too. Having a colleague going through the course with you so you can chat things through has been the most helpful though. There is a lot of flexibility in the kind of placements we can do so it’s a great opportunity to find something you enjoy doing.
I line dance five or six evenings a week so weekends are dedicated to study. I had a 40-year gap in my education so it was a big shock to come back. Essays have never been my strong point but it really has improved my skills. I can see how far I’ve moved on when I look back at my early essays.
All the course materials have been really interesting, especially as we work in social work day to day. The materials have all been bang up to date too, which is great considering the changes which have happened in social work over the last five years.