In the lively post-ceremony atmosphere, we sat down with Emma to see how she was feeling. “Shocked, overwhelmed. I wasn’t expecting to win. So, it did come as a shock,” she said. When Emma heard her name announced as the 2024 AOTY, it took a few seconds for her to reach the front of the room, still revelling in the surprise. Her speech, which moved some to tears, shared the moment with her fellow finalists.
Emma began her Team Leader/Supervisor Level 3 apprenticeship in November 2022 to grow both personally and professionally. “I just wanted to develop myself. I want to grow a career in OCS, so I started this apprenticeship.” However, the sudden loss of her grandfather at the start of her apprenticeship almost deterred her. “I was debating whether to stop and not do it. But something at the back of my mind said, ‘No, Granddad knew you were doing this and wouldn’t want you to stop.’ So, it pushed me.”
The loss of a close family member was not the only hurdle she faced. At 41, she discovered she had dyslexia, which made the already challenging mathematics pathway necessary to pass the course even more difficult. “I had tears, I had tantrums. But a lot of finalists were the same. So, even though you feel alone at that point, you’re actually not.” She shared that it had been pizza-forward maths lessons – the tough equations and questions, greased by slices of ham and pineapple pizza – that helped in part to keep her motivated and on track.
