Raising Aspirations assembly 4

Date: 24th Oct 2018 @ 9:30pm

As part of our raising aspirations project, we have been inviting guests into assembly to share their current or previous careers with the children. Each week, children have to ask questions to guess the job; we then learn about their roles and responsibilities, the qualifications required and the transferable skills needed to be successful in the role. This week we were joined by Mrs Phillips from Lilac class. After some excellent questions, we discovered that Mrs Phillips had a previous career as a paediatric nurse.

The main roles and resonsibilities include:

• assessing and planning nursing care requirements
• writing care plans and records
• providing pre and post operation care
• monitoring a patient's condition
• carrying out routine investigations and care procedures, such as administering medication, injections and intravenous infusions, and taking patient samples, pulses, temperatures and blood pressures
• dealing with emergencies
• supervising junior staff
• organising workloads
• tutoring student nurses
• providing advice and promoting good health
• providing information, emotional support and reassurance to patients and relatives

Amongst the transferable skills we learnt of, we found that good interpersonal skills are vital for nurses, who have to communicate with numerous other medical and care professionals as well as being a key source of information and emotional support for patients. Other valuable attributes discussed are:

• verbal/written communication skills
• empathy and sensitivity to patients' needs and concerns
• observation skills
• willingness to be flexible
• teamwork skills