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I see a number of posts relating to everyday is a school day for them and I couldn't agree more . Whether this comes to  from speaking to our amazing staff during training sessions , reading SQA evidence , working as a People Team  or visiting the homes of people we support . To do so is a very powerful experience and it  ensures I remember the reasons why I do my job.
I have been fortunate to have travelled  a bit in my life and that has enriched my overall life experiences .
I often reflect about the people who have had a large impact on my life and how they have shaped my learning . This has been particularly  true over the last couple of months following the  death of my Mother .
A lifetime of learning from and alongside her was a fantastic experience . Unfortunately , for some reason, I   did  not pick up a her amazing baking skills, however, my challenge this year is to bake my way through a few of her hand written recipes :-)

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I am very passionate about continuing personal and professional development, and was privileged to be selected to attend Harvard Business School’s Strategic Perspectives in Non-Profit Management programme in 2016. The school’s mission is ‘to educate leaders who make a difference in the world’ and I was honoured to join NGO leaders from around the world for an incredible three weeks. I not only gained invaluable experience and knowledge, which I utilise day to day in my job as CEO of ENABLE Scotland, but the whole experience taught me a lot about myself and continues to do so  – I think reflection is a vital part of any learning experience, and is something I always remind myself to make time for.

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I am very passionate about continuing personal and professional development, and was privileged to be selected to attend Harvard Business School’s Strategic Perspectives in Non-Profit Management programme in 2016. The school’s mission is ‘to educate leaders who make a difference in the world’ and I was honoured to join NGO leaders from around the world for an incredible three weeks. I not only gained invaluable experience and knowledge, which I utilise day to day in my job as CEO of ENABLE Scotland, but the whole experience taught me a lot about myself and continues to do so  – I think reflection is a vital part of any learning experience, and is something I always remind myself to make time for.

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My greatest learning experience to date has been the Saltire Fellowship.  I spent 4 months living in Boston attending Babson College with the most incredible lecturers and cohort.  I worked for an amazing American based company reviewing their digital strategy.  We then went on to China were we met business leaders from a range of sectors.  On my return to Scotland I spent a further 4 months working with a high growth business and Visit Scotland on two exciting projects.  Truly a life changing experience.... so much so my husband went on the Fellowship 2 years later.

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My greatest learning experience to date has been the Saltire Fellowship.  I spent 4 months living in Boston attending Babson College with the most incredible lecturers and cohort.  I worked for an amazing American based company reviewing their digital strategy.  We then went on to China were we met business leaders from a range of sectors.  On my return to Scotland I spent a further 4 months working with a high growth business and Visit Scotland on two exciting projects.  Truly a life changing experience.... so much so my husband went on the Fellowship 2 years later.

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Kim McLaren

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I had great learning and life experience in my early 20's when I completed and passed the Army Infantry Training Course. Now I was a fit lad back in the day (believe me!) and to get ready for this course we had to undertake 6 x full weekends of preparation training. The course then started with 30 young fit men and it was gruelling both physically and mentally. By the end only just over half the group survived.  We then marched to the pipe band at a passing out parade and my close family attended, my chest was puffed out with pride that day. This course helped me to understand teamwork, camaraderie, taking responsibility and understanding the consequences of decision making. I have taken this experience all through life both in my personal life and in my work career. Unfortunately, I can't post pictures as cameras were not readily available back in the olden days.

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One of my best learning experiences was completing and passing the HEC in Person Centred Planning.

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One of my best learning experiences was completing and passing the HEC in Person Centred Planning.

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Unfortunately this course is no longer available.

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The best type of learning for me is when I get the opportunity to speak with someone we support or their parents. Working in an office environment, it's very easy to focus on what we're doing - rather than why we're doing it. Taking some time to listen is always incredibly useful.

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While studying, I moved to France for a year, it was an amazing opportunity to experience another culture, and it also taught me a lot about myself. I learned heaps about my new city, Rouen, about French law, and made lifelong friends, but I also learned a lot about myself. It was an enormous lesson in independence, resilience and most importantly, having faith in myself. I will never forget my first lecture - I went in thinking it would be just like home, and walked out 2 hours later having written 4 words and understood about 15. At the end of the year, I came home a (big!) bit of a Francophile, having loved my time in Rouen - through a combination of hard work, determination, great friends and little je ne sais quoi!

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While studying, I moved to France for a year, it was an amazing opportunity to experience another culture, and it also taught me a lot about myself. I learned heaps about my new city, Rouen, about French law, and made lifelong friends, but I also learned a lot about myself. It was an enormous lesson in independence, resilience and most importantly, having faith in myself. I will never forget my first lecture - I went in thinking it would be just like home, and walked out 2 hours later having written 4 words and understood about 15. At the end of the year, I came home a (big!) bit of a Francophile, having loved my time in Rouen - through a combination of hard work, determination, great friends and little je ne sais quoi!

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Fifteen years ago I volunteered to be the first member of staff in my previous employment to do  an SVQ award.  It took a few months of my spare time to complete but it really made an impact on me and broadened my understanding of the Health and Social Care sector,  so as a result I took the opportunity to undertake the Assessor's award.  I gained great satisfaction from sharing the pride of  fellow staff member's  when I had supported them through their qualifications so decided to put my new skills to the test and applied for an Assessor's post with Enable .             Since then,  I have constantly been tested and challenged but   have never stopped learning .    The motivation and the rewards have  come from the high standards of values and skills that our staff provide for the people they support.

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Fifteen years ago I volunteered to be the first member of staff in my previous employment to do  an SVQ award.  It took a few months of my spare time to complete but it really made an impact on me and broadened my understanding of the Health and Social Care sector,  so as a result I took the opportunity to undertake the Assessor's award.  I gained great satisfaction from sharing the pride of  fellow staff member's  when I had supported them through their qualifications so decided to put my new skills to the test and applied for an Assessor's post with Enable .             Since then,  I have constantly been tested and challenged but   have never stopped learning .    The motivation and the rewards have  come from the high standards of values and skills that our staff provide for the people they support.

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S

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My best learning experience has to be becoming a parent. You don't realise how wonderful the little things in life are until you look at things through a childs eyes. 

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My best learning experience has to be becoming a parent. You don't realise how wonderful the little things in life are until you look at things through a childs eyes. 

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Every day is a school day is an understatement in my life . When working with c

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Every day is a school day is an understatement in my life . When working with c

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I describe this as the best and worst experience of my life. I have put together this presentation that let's you share my journey. It was really life changing and makes you realise that anything is possible!!You as a human being hold all the power to achieve anything!
Enjoy

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Another terrific learning experience was undertaking some volunteering with a team I led in a previous job. We were a team who would only come together in a serious incident to provide support to affected people for their welfare and wellbeing.  We had made lots of plans about what we would do if a serious incident happened - how we would communicate with each other in the circumstances, how we would provide practical welfare support and emotional first aid to different groups of people.  But beyond acting out scenarios, our plans had never been tested in a real incident where we would have to work very closely together and depend highly on each other to get through what would be a difficult situation.  

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Another terrific learning experience was undertaking some volunteering with a team I led in a previous job. We were a team who would only come together in a serious incident to provide support to affected people for their welfare and wellbeing.  We had made lots of plans about what we would do if a serious incident happened - how we would communicate with each other in the circumstances, how we would provide practical welfare support and emotional first aid to different groups of people.  But beyond acting out scenarios, our plans had never been tested in a real incident where we would have to work very closely together and depend highly on each other to get through what would be a difficult situation.  

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So I arranged for us to volunteer overnight with The Marie Trust, a homelessness charity based in Glasgow.  They were holding a rough night - where members of the public would be sponsored to sleep rough for the night to experience what it felt like to be homeless.  We were required to work as a team to steward the event - we set up spaces for people, registered participants on arrival and helped them set up sleeping bags, we served warm drinks and food, administered first aid and at times, helped people who were emotionally affected by the experience.  It taught us all so much - firstly how very lucky we were to be going home to a warm bed in the morning and secondly how to work together as a team. It helped us identify particular strengths and talents of team members and to build really strong relationships between us.  It was something very different to do as a learning activity but we all gained knowledge and skills we could transfer back into work and made the team much better placed to work cohesively together when required.

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In the world of SVQ’s everyday is a learning day and I am very fortunate to meet a vast variety of different people on a daily basis.

Every person I have ever supported has unwittingly encouraged and promoted my own personal learning and development by pushing me to think outside the box and adapt my approaches to find the right learning style and method for that particular individual.

What I love most is every now and then I will read a candidate’s reflective account or observe their work practice and think wow I have never thought of doing it that way before, But as I keep saying in my workshops and Individual SVQ Meetings everyday is a school day and if we don’t keep growing we would quickly become stagnant in our job roles.

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Lesley Learmonth              I really like learning by meeting new people.  I am a member of Best Buddies which is part of the ENABLE Glasgow branch and we meet every week and we do a lot of different activities. Sometimes we talk to students and volunteers about what life is like with a learning disability - we help them to learn from us!  As part of my job, I am a co-trainer on Welcome to Enable and I talk to new staff about my life to help them get an understanding of learning disability.  I enjoy that very much.  

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Lesley Learmonth              I really like learning by meeting new people.  I am a member of Best Buddies which is part of the ENABLE Glasgow branch and we meet every week and we do a lot of different activities. Sometimes we talk to students and volunteers about what life is like with a learning disability - we help them to learn from us!  As part of my job, I am a co-trainer on Welcome to Enable and I talk to new staff about my life to help them get an understanding of learning disability.  I enjoy that very much.  

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Every day is a learning experience which is great in my role as People Director. No two days are the same and I particularly like when we have difficult challenges and we work together as a team to get the best outcome which is very satisfying.

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My best learning experience was in Iceland (not the shop) when I spent the day learning to drive a snow mobile across the largest Glacier in Europe.
We were taught loads of important tips like avoiding sinkholes/crevasses  and how to jump of the snow mobile in case you didn't learn the first part quickly enough.
The instructor was great (and very patient) but when I was at the front of the line, leading everyone for a 5 mile stretch of the Glacier, it was one of the best moments of my life.
I would recommend it to anyone, but unlike me, wear waterproof boots

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My best learning experience has been having 6 sessions with an Executive Coach.  We met once a month for three hours at a time. She was very challenging and prompted me to find my own answers as to what my goals were and how I could best achieve these. She helped me to really think about what I was doing at that point in time and my future career direction.  It wasn't always a comfortable experience as I was pushed hard but it gave me space and time to think, to test out my ideas with an expert and to set clear goals and actions for myself.  I made some big decisions as a result of these sessions that I don't think I would have otherwise taken.