Meet the team - Sean Fleming-Way - 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 spoke to Sean Fleming-Way, one of our optical skills tutors to learn about his career path into optical.
Name: Sean Fleming-Way
Job title: Optical Skills Tutor
Like many people I’ve spoken to that work in optical, I fell into it. It wasn’t a career that was mentioned at school. I’m more academically focused so I did the traditional post school route; go to college and get A Levels, go to university and get a degree. I love music so studied that at university, and whilst I was there had a part time retail job.
After university I took on more hours in my retail job, staying there for over 8 years, when I realised I needed to find the next step in my career journey. After some time searching, I found a role in an opticians practice as an optical assistant. I was really attracted to the science element of the role.
Within a year of being at the practice, they offered me the opportunity to be trained to become a dispensing optician. I jumped at the chance, as it enabled me to progress my career and had that science element that I really enjoyed. When I first started at the practice, I didn’t really have an idea what a dispensing optician was, which I find is the case for many people I have spoken to not from the optical profession. As “optician” is a broadly used term, I often find I’m explaining the difference between an optometrist and a dispensing optician when describing my role. I feel this is where a greater public awareness of the profession would help to encourage more people to look after their eyes appropriately, as it is very easy to come across misinformation on eye health through social media and other prominent channels.
My dispensing optician course was taught through the Association of British Dispensing Opticians (ABDO) college via distance learning and block release. It was a much more enjoyable experience than my first degree and, like an apprenticeship, enabled me to put my learning into action straightaway. After completing my degree, I stayed with the practice for another couple of years, working with patients, and becoming the in-store trainer. This saw me supervising the apprentices we had in-store. I loved supporting our staff with their work, offering mentoring support, and helping them navigate patient interactions.
So, when it came to looking for my next role, I looked for one that focused on supporting young people enter the optical industry. When I found a skills tutor role at Woodspeen Training it felt right.
I’ve been here for 9 months and the learners that I teach are teaching me things! I set an assignment on frame materials recently and they found some materials that I was unaware were being used. It was great that they’d found out something new – teaching goes both ways in this role!
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.
