During National Careers Week schools across CET took part in a range of careers related activities. All schools across CET are using the Skillsbuilder package and this was used as a focus for the week highlighting where children learn and use different skills both in and out of school. We have highlighted some of the fantastic work going on in our schools
Yewdale Primary School celebrated National Careers Week in many different ways. They started off with a whole school assembly where they looked at different career paths they could take. Children listened to staff aspirations from when they were primary age and looked at skills needed for different jobs. The whole school participated in a ‘Guess that Job’ quiz, where they listened to skill clues to guess the job role. Each class looked at gender stereotyping within jobs and they found that anyone could aspire to be anything.
Early years looked further into gender roles within the work place and examined images of people in different roles. They had open discussions about the images and shared with the class what they aspired to be when they grow up. Key Stage 1 welcomed a visitor into one of their classes. A yoga teacher came in to teach mindfulness and breathing techniques. They learned that the visitor went to India to attend a course to be able to do their job. Key Stage 2 experienced a virtual trip in one of their classes. With thanks to Skills Builder, 24 children came off timetable to plan and produce an innovative invention to share with a well-known building company, Wates. They had to pitch their ideas to the company and they received valuable feedback from real-life engineers and construction workers. Throughout the week, staff would stop children whist travelling around the school to ask, ‘What do you want to be when you get older?’ Some wanted to be train drivers, others zoo keepers and some took inspiration from their teachers and teaching assistants and wanted to follow in their footsteps.
At Yanwath and Tebay the whole school assembly looked at the range of jobs available in Cumbria using local Labour Market Information. All staff completed a poster for their classroom door showing their career pathways to inspire conversations with pupils about jobs and careers. During class assemblies teachers asked children to consider what they would like to do as a career choice and they created drawings and writing tasks.
In William Howard School the BBC visited students in Year 7 to Year 10 to talk about different career paths in Cumbria and also in the Media. Visitors included Sarah Story a Radio 1 Dance DJ, Kim Boak a BBC Producer who worked on programmes including Blue Peter and Sports Personality of the Year and Ben Meader Senior Reporter from BBC Cumbria who covered the Olympics and now works in local news. All discussed their career pathways as they were all from Carlisle and William Howard students also spoke of their volunteer work including a Year 13 student who is a female referee for local Men’s Sunday League football games. Within assembly students were spoken to about the average Cumbrian wage and where future job opportunities were coming up in the next few years and they looked at the lifestyle these jobs would afford them in terms of house prices and cost of living.