Technician Careers – Meet CRC’s Senior Science Technician

It’s #TECHOGNITION Day! 8th March

#TECHOGNITION is a national celebration of technical support staff, recognising the importance of their essential roles in school and college education.

The seventh annual #TECHOGNITION event is being held on Friday 8th March 2024.We want to celebrate our technicians and the great work they do for the CRC community.

We are shining the spotlight on our amazing technicians in a series of blogs: Meet a CRC Technician! Read on to find out about their career route, what a typical day looks like and much more. As it’s National Career’s Week they will be sharing some top tips for people considering a career as a Technician in Education.

Meet Senior Science Technician, Shiree Gilday-Burns

Setting up the crime scene for Forensics Year 1 assessed practical and inoculating an agar plate for Access student project.

What department(s) / subjects do you support?

Science/Access/International

How did you come to be a technician? (What career/educational route have you taken to get here?)

I have a biology degree and have spent most of my time within a scientific workplace except doing marketing at Cambridge Building Society.

After I had a family I wanted to get back to work but something that worked around the children and the school holidays. A school science technician seemed the perfect solution so I started in 2001 at Netherhall.

After a while I didn’t need the school holidays so I moved into industry to work full time. This didn’t really agree with me as I found the work quite tedious. The job at CRC came up, it is full time so I get the best of both worlds.

What does a typical day look like as a technician?

There is no typical day as a technician. Every day is different as the curriculum/course units change regularly. Often plans have to be changed because a delivery may arrive or a lecturer requests something different.

Generally, I start the day checking the labs following activities the day before, clearing away any equipment, tidying and making sure any equipment needed for that day is in the right room.

Then it is washing up and preparing for the next round of sessions.

Prepping for lessons can be as simple as getting a tray out or may take a lot of time if specialist consumables are required such as microbiology that needs sterile equipment, agar plates and bacterial cultures.

What are the key skills of a great FE technician?

A great technician needs to be proactive and be able to look ahead to what is needed. We run an online requisition system, that is accessible from any device, so it is easy to keep an eye on requests and to plan ahead.

What do you particularly like about being a technician / being a technician at CRC?

I particularly enjoy the variation, every day is different. I enjoy interacting with the students and especially helping with their individual projects. We run a BTEC in Forensics, it is a very interesting and at times a fun course to support. At the moment, students are studying crime scenes so I have to set these up with ‘bodies’, weapons and associated ‘evidence’.

At CRC, there is much freedom to make the job as interesting and different as possible. My department is very supportive of new initiatives and expanding information about Science to the wider college community. I have initiated a science club which can be challenging but also a lot of fun.

What advice would you offer anyone considering becoming a technician?

A technician role can be very rewarding but not without its challenges. You need to be proactive and engage regularly with your staff. We are called Support staff so I see the job very much as supporting my teachers and trying to make their jobs easier and a little less stressful especially in the practical way.

CELEBRATE TECHNICIANS!

We want to thank our Technicians for all the great work they do supporting CRC staff and students.