Balancing Work and Study
Glen Richardson is a PE Co-ordinator at a primary school. He wanted to gain more qualifications to help him progress his career and after completing his Level 3 PESS (Physical Education Support in Schools) with MK College it seemed only natural to progress onto Level 4 HNC Sport.
Glen started his year-long HNC in September 2018. Here he talks about how the course enables him to balance work with study and why it’s a worthwhile investment.
“When deciding where to study I considered other universities but was put off due to the cost and the time implication involved in the courses. The HNC at MK College offers flexible learning – it takes place two evenings a week and so allowed me to continue to work full-time and study at the same time.
Balancing work and study has still been a challenge. I did start off quite worried about managing the workload but my course tutor provides amazing support and encouragement and helped me to learn to manage my time effectively – I now schedule regular time slots in to study and make sure I stick to them! My tutor always gives me the extra push I need to ensure I always hand in my best work for assessments.
The evening sessions include lots of group work which is really enjoyable. We (the students) get to share our experiences and learn from each other. Our course tutor talks through requirements of the assignments breaking them down into manageable chunks and we consider as a group what approach we’ll take.
If you like sport and want to gain additional qualifications to support your career development I would definitely recommend this course. Yes it’s challenging alongside the day job, but it’s possible and definitely worth the effort – I have learnt so much through my course that I can regularly use in my current teaching practice. After I’ve completed my HNC I am keen to progress to Level 5 HND at MK College as I’d like to further my knowledge in coach mentoring.”