Careers Fair
WOW (World of Work) – an Insight into Industry
Our Year 10 students took part in a 3 day world of work (WOW) event, which started on Monday 11th July with Key Note Speaker, Paul Hodgkins launching the event. Paul explained to the students how he started his career, on a YTS scheme, (which was a Youth Training Scheme, and is similar to the apprenticeship programme available for young people today). He quickly worked his way up through the company, and within two years entered the world of Project Management. His inspirational leadership style was quickly harnessed and he started heading up the Siemens Global Project Business Programmes across the UK and North West Europe, handling multi-million pound budgets whilst leading teams of people.
The WOW event, which was designed to give our Year 10 students an insight into a variety of industries and sectors, and saw employees from both local and national businesses, coming into school to deliver a range of workshops and sessions. This engaging format included ‘talk and task’ sessions which allowed the students to hear first-hand about the presenters own career journeys, pathways and routes whilst gaining insightful information from a range of diverse industries. They were then given the opportunity to carry out a work related task, and understand some of the real life challenges they face on a day to day basis, allowing them to further develop their transferable skills and see the relevance of some of the subjects they are studying in school, and how they can be applied to everyday tasks in the world of work.
The event finished on 13th July, culminating with a careers fair, where the whole school were invited to attend and engage with approximately 50 national and local organisations and businesses who came to support the careers fair. Julie Thompson, Career Lead said “It was a fantastic turnout, and we were so pleased to be able to have visitors back into school. We cannot thank all our partners enough for giving up their valuable time to devise engaging sessions for WOW and attend their careers fair where they were able to talk to our students and help them understand the pathways and careers available to them in the future”.
Career Ambassadors were on hand to assist the visitors with all their needs during the very hot afternoon session, regularly providing much needed refreshments.
This hugely successful event, has helped to provide our students with the opportunity to have direct contact with a wide range of industries, and many different sectors. They were able to find out more about what employers are looking for in young people, the range of pathways Post 16 and Post 18, have direct conversations with apprenticeship providers and trainers, learn more about the different qualifications they can gain and find out more about university entry routes, courses and pathways, and help them to be more equipped and resilient for the every changing world of work, which in turn, will help them make better informed decisions. Our 6th form students were also able to make direct contacts and links to assist with their work experience placements next year.
We are very thankful and grateful to everyone who took part and engaged with our students, allowing them to understand the widest range of options and opportunities available to them, and also giving them a truly WOW experience!
A selection of pictures which capture the event