Meet the team - Kay Bagshaw - Optical Tutor
At Woodspeen Training we understand the importance of industry expertise. Many of our skills tutors come from the industries they teach in, enabling them to give learners first-hand experiences of what to expect in the workplace.
We caught up with Kay Bagshaw, our first optical tutor. Kay knows our programme inside out, she should she helped to write it, using her experience to include elements that mean learners in practice really understand how to support patients.
Name: Kay Bagshaw
Job title: Optical Skills Tutor
Pretty much like everyone that works in optical, I fell into it. My pathway was through redundancy, I needed a role and I found a trainee dispensing vacancy. I’d never heard of anything like it previously but before I knew it, I was a trainee dispensing optician.
I completed my training by attending Bradford College one day a week and working the other five days in the practice. It took me three years to qualify, and after that I entered a dispensing role in Derbyshire. I stayed there for 10 years, having both my children whilst at the practice. I loved working there, supporting patients access the right eyecare and staff grow their skills.
After my second maternity leave, I opted to go for locum positions for a couple of years. The flexibility suited me, enabling me to work around a young family.
A couple of years later I was offered a position as optical manager in Asda’s large optical branch in Spondon in Derby. I was there for four and a half years, including during the pandemic which wasn’t easy for anyone in a healthcare role. At one point there was only myself and an optometrist in practice for 20 weeks, supporting patients get access to eye healthcare and each other to get through a tough time.
Covid was difficult for everyone, and with school bubbles shutting down every few weeks, it wasn’t sustainable for me to stay in my role, I needed to be in clinic to support patients but my family needed me at home. Around September 2020 I made the decision to leave the role at Asda and look for something, knowing that I could return to being a locum if necessary.
Then I got a call out of the blue, from the then MD of Woodspeen Training. She said she’d seen my CV and my experience was everything they were looking for. She was particularly interested in how I had supported new staff within the practices I’d worked for and my qualification as an examiner with the Association of British Dispensing Opticians (ABDO) – seeing learners through practical exams and undertaking online tutoring in my spare time.
Sam said that Woodspeen Training were putting together a new apprenticeship course for optical assistants and would I be interested? I definitely was! I started as a consultant in December 2020 and became permanent in January 2021 and I’ve been with Woodspeen Training ever since.
When I joined Woodspeen Training, I wrote the optical assistant level 2 course (as was). I looked back on my time working in independent practices, multi practice locations, and as a locum, and asked the questions ‘what would I want if someone trained an optical assistant for me?’, ‘what would I want them to know?’ and made sure I weaved those elements into the course too.
When the programme changed into a level 3, I worked with the team to ensure that those elements stayed in the programme as the practices we have worked with have all said how valuable they have found them. It’s things like this that mean our learners all excel within our programme and have given us our 100% success rate.
Optical is a career that isn’t mentioned in schools or at career fairs, and it really should be. With so much to offer, an optical apprenticeship can really help young people begin their career.
Full information about Woodspeen Training's level 3 optical assistant 2022 can be found here, or you can contact the the team to learn more about the support we offer.
