national careers week

To celebrate and mark National Careers Week 2025, our Careers department has organised a full programme of events in school, that launched yesterday with a series of `Be Inspired` workshops.

We were delighted to welcome a host of visiting representatives from a huge variety of sectors to engage with our Year 8 and 9 students.

The first event was the Speed Networking Workshop, pictured above and below, that took place in our Main Hall.

Here, in small groups, our students rotated between employer volunteers from many different fields of work.

These included: Business, Nursing, Law, Finance, Architecture, Arts, Police, Engineering, Recruitment Consultancy and Hospitality.

Our students were encouraged to use the opportunity to find out all that they could about the range of professions, and to think about and explore whether they think that this would be a career that they would find interesting and rewarding.

Our students were able to directly field their own questions to the visiting representatives.

They received invaluable first-hand information, and it was a unique opportunity to receive a great deal of direction from current working professionals in the multitude of sectors.

Guess my Job Workshop

In our auditorium, our students benefited from the opportunity to meet and interview four employer volunteers, and they were tasked with asking them questions to try and find out the sectors that they worked in. 

The fields of work represented were: Social Work, Finance. HR and Software Engineering. Again, another great opportunity to interact directly with and learn from experienced professionals. 

Presentation on Degree Apprenticeships

Our students were also lucky enough to take part in a presentation from BBC degree apprentice Ella:

Ella shared her journey, and talked our students through the application process, gave tips on optimising each stage, and shared details about the many different apprenticeships available at the BBC, and the realities and rewards of day-to-day working (and study) in the life of a degree apprentice.

Students then got the opportunity to ask Ella a variety of questions, including what projects she's currently working on, what's the best thing about a degree apprenticeship, and about openings for permanent roles upon completion.

Year 8 Art students were also fortunate to be visited by our visiting architect, who shared her drawings with them, and took a look at the work they completed during their recent Architectural Drawing project.

Additionally, there have been daily infographics and interactive tasks on careers and next steps available for all of our students to participate in, and on Thursday the Careers department is looking forward to welcoming a visiting speaker from HSBC who will deliver a presentation on careers in Finance and Banking, including apprenticeships and graduate opportunities, for the latest in their series of lunchtime Careers Cafés.

A thoroughly enjoyable and highly inspirational and motivational day and week for our students as they contemplate their pathways into the working sector. With huge thanks to all the visiting representatives who gave their time to inspire our students, and to our Careers department staff Mrs Kinder and Miss Marshall for organising this wonderful opportunity for our students.