AARON SCOTT 2020/21

December 30^th 2019, on the day of my 18^th birthday, I set off on my 30+ hour journey to the United Kingdom. When arriving I had a week stay over in Hartlepool, England, visiting my family over the new year period while changing my body system to work with the different time zone and the freezing cold. It was a trip down memory lane, going to the arcades along the beachside, walking along the beach to get the morning papers for my grandparents, and a childhood dream of attending a Hartlepool United football match. It’s safe to say that I was having the time of my life and my placement hadn’t even started. After deciding halfway through my last year at Rathkeale that I wanted to do a gap year in the UK, I knew it was going to be hard trying to find a school to go and work at. However, an Old Boy, Thomas Wagner, helped me get a spot at his placement at Campbell College Belfast.

When I arrived at the school, it was 5.30pm at night, pitch black in the middle of winter.  When me and one of the other gap students were taken up the long driveway, we then saw the front of the school lit up, looking like it must be a part of Hogwarts. Over 125 years old; over 1200 pupils ages 3-18 in both junior and senior school; and over 70 members of staff, the college definitely had a lot of history. After meeting my flatmates, another two Kiwi gaps and an Australian, along with the hockey coaches, one a Canadian and the other a South African, then settling in and getting used to hearing various Northern Irish and some Irish accents around the place, it was a breeze. We got to know so many people that when a staff member came up to chat with us, it was a guarantee that we already forgot their name. Everyone was super friendly and very welcoming, getting to know all about us and what life is like back in New Zealand. Especially the hot weather! My day would start with me getting up and heading to the dining hall for some breakfast at 8am, which I was soon the only gap student attending breakfasts. All the food was catered for in the dining hall and we got along really well with the chefs always getting a little extra to take back to the flat. We started working around 9am either helping with Home Economics (H.E), P.E and Art. We would spend our day helping those departments with whatever they needed us to do. Helping H.E with the Tesco shop, taking some P.E lessons and a lot of cutting paper in art. There was always a lot of photocopying going on as well as laminating. Heavily involved with coaching the football team after school would always finish off my working day around 4-4.15pm, depending on when the Head of Football would want to call it a day. We were involved with the boarding department once a week (I would take the boys to do their weekly Tesco Shop and then supervise the seniors in the sports hall). We also had to do a weekend shift in boarding too, which involved sleeping over in the boarding house. In boarding we worked alongside the housemothers, they are lovely and caring and always up for a cup of tea and a laugh.

Northern Ireland is amazing going around the towns, and I’m getting the most out of my overseas experience. Belfast, my temporary home city was awesome, it reminded me of home a little bit. We spent many trips into town on the glider buses whenever we could, experiencing the night life quite a few times. I got on really well with my flatmates and we all got competitive when the Xbox was turned on. My spare time consisted of getting involved with hockey and football coaching, using the school gym, playing FIFA with the boys, exploring Belfast and nifty coffee shops around the towns, watching a lot of the premier league and champions league matches, having some competitions with the junior boarders and I also played football for Dunmurry 1sts and East Belfast 5 a-side team, which was run by some coaches involved with Campbell.

Seeing all the photos and videos and hearing the stories of previous gap students’ adventures of traveling around Europe is one of the reasons I wanted to take a gap year. However, Coronavirus shut down that whole experience; festival tickets were claimed back and there was no going anywhere. Lockdown for the United Kingdom started back March 22^nd just before the easter break, hearing all the rumours that schools wouldn’t be back for a long time. I didn’t believe it at first but soon came to realise that was the case. I decided to stay where I was and make the most out of my year over in the UK, unlike many who decided to travel home and be with their families. Keeping positive about COVID-19 I wasn’t alone in making the decision to stay, thankfully my flatmates Luke Bowman and Sam Porter-Samuels had the same idea. We had 100 acres of ‘stunning woodland’, as explained on Campbell College’s website, almost all to ourselves with a few teachers who lived on site too. Over the next months of lockdown we had a routine going which involved a weekly walk to Tesco to do our food shopping, a weekly gym routine, running in the mornings, some football here and there, some sunbathing and of course some gaming and binge watching many Netflix series and shows. The teachers still looked out and after us and made sure we had everything we needed and our bosses kindly made us a meal every Saturday, sometimes a cheeky takeaway. Eventually I did manage to get over and see my best mate in Oxford towards the start of the new school year. I was so excited to get out and travel for the week that I was away and our only plan together was to take a day trip to London the rest we would take day by day. I arrived in Birmingham then trained down to Oxford, the town had a lot of history and amazing monuments to see and explore. The next day Jack Cox and I woke up really early and jumped on a bus to London where we saw many tourist attractions starting with Buckingham Palace, Trafalgar Square, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben (there was still work being done on it), London Eye, Tower Bridge and we took the underground to Oxford Street which was crammed full of people. We then decided to do a night stay over in Bristol before I flew back to Belfast. Bristol was amazing, just like Oxford with many old historical churches and tourist attractions. We definitely spent our time and money wisely over the week stopping off in a few different Wetherspoons getting our meals and beverages.

 

 

I was offered to extend my contract for another year, which I accepted as I personally felt I hadn’t yet finished my journey over here in Belfast. We went into yet another lockdown before the Christmas term ended which was a local lockdown, however, a couple days after Christmas we went into a full national lockdown again. This time there were boarders here which meant that we were involved helping in boarding more. I also took this opportunity to get out and see Northern Ireland a bit more than I did in 2020. The little towns are awesome, and well worth the trip round them. I have definitely grown more knowledge over here and learnt so much about Northern Ireland. I’m still hoping I can travel around Europe and more of the UK before I make my journey back to New Zealand.

 

The memories and experiences that I have already made/continuing to make throughout my time here are always going to stay with me. I am extremely grateful and thankful of Liz and Jim for offering me this life changing experience – as well as everyone else who supports The James Meikle Scholarship. I would not be where I am today without the trust. Even though there was a global pandemic it has been amazing and I will encourage many others as it is an amazing chapter in life.