My first year at Junior Jam!

It was July 2019. I remember the day being hot, the roads were quiet and I had just finished a Coke when I looked at my phone. I was looking for a new job and Junior Jam was one of the results that stood out to me. The logo looked trendy and cool and I remember seeing a member of staff (who I now know as Tom) smiling in the images.

“I should apply for this!” I thought to myself.

A year later I have just finished my first year at Junior Jam as one of the iMedia teachers. My name is Shaun and I have worked in education most of my life, usually with adults with learning disabilities but last summer I decided I needed to have a bit of a career change. Get back into the classroom, work with some of the younger generation, inspire young people. The classic ‘teaching principles.’ As I call them. Now I am sitting here in these crazy times writing this blog post telling you about my year.

My term started with creating and producing music. Something that was both awesome fun and really out of my comfort zone. Full disclosure, I can’t hold a tune in a bucket! I set the task up for the young people. “This week we are going to create a rock song” and watched as the smile crept across some of the Year 6 faces. The class then busied themselves to the task, plugging in headphones, dragging on instruments and the odd occasional sigh in frustration when they didn’t know how to delete something. After about 30 minutes; a solitary hand went into the air in an otherwise busy and silent classroom “Sir, Sir! Come listen to this! Its sick” (I never figured out what was ill about it but I am told that sick is some young person speak for cool?) I walked over, put my ear to the iPad and ….. Above and Beyond Synth …. It's always Above and Beyond Synth

The next term we did programming and I play a lot of video games and am just generally a big geeky so this term was perfect for me. I got to show the kids exactly how games work behind the scenes and the kids even got to make a few of their own. I remember dressing up as a robot in school one of the days for the programming lesson with the Year 1s. The smaller children in year 1 and 2 had fun programming “Mr Kelly-bot” to brush his teeth or stopping him from walking into tables, it was a good day even if I did leave with a few bruises. The programming was fun!

Of course, the actual work you do is only one part of the job. It’s the people you work with that make it into a place you would like to stay. I have found around the West Midlands there is an amazing team. All headed by our amazing Team Leader. It would be too much of a long list to name them all but let’s just say they have been extremely fun to work with! Emily, Racheal and the office staff have been approachable and extremely attentive when something either went wrong or I had a question. In fact, I’ve spoken to the office staff so much I have developed a very distinctive telephone voice and have earned the nickname “Posh Spice Shaun” as apparently even though I am from Wolverhampton, or as we say it there… “Wolver’amptun” I certainly don’t sound it! It’s not just the job you have but the people you work with that makes all the difference to me!

So even though we are living through interesting times and the year has had its ups and downs just know that somewhere in the amazing company of Junior Jam there is one employee who has had such fun this year! Looking back to July 2019 and clicking “Apply” in between cans of coke and hot summer days has turned out to be a great decision! See everyone in September!

  - Shaun