KS2 Careers Week took place just before February half term in the week of 17th – 20th February. This is always a much-anticipated event in the school calendar and this year was no exception! Each year, St Stephen’s hosts a careers week for KS2 pupils where they go off timetable over the course of the week and spend the afternoons hearing from various different professionals, as well visiting workplaces in the local area. In a vast and changing world of work, it is important for seeds to be planted about potential careers with our children as early as possible.
On Monday, we had visits to school from a scientist at Proctor and Gamble where the children explored the chemistry that goes into creating many household products including laundry detergent and shampoo. Many of our children enjoy science lessons and creating experiments and were enthused by the idea of doing this for a living! Also among our visitors was a representative from Architecture and Town Planning. In this session, pupils learned about the role of an architect in designing buildings/structures and town planners’ roles in designing towns, villages and neighbourhoods. There are lots of considerations when planning and designing including the functionality and environmental impact. A new visitor to our school this year was a Video Game Designer who taught us about their role in designing props and environments for video games. It was apparent how much work goes into creating a video game, each usually taking a couple of years to create with work spread across a large team! More information about careers in the games industry can be found here: https://gamescareersweek.org
A special mention goes to Mr Baines too who stepped in when our other planned visitors weren’t able to make it last minute. Mr Baines demonstrated the skill of thinking on your feet and delivered a session on careers in teaching. Although pupils are in contact with teachers every day, it was refreshing for them to look at the role from a different lens. Perhaps we will see some of our pupils return to St Stephen’s as staff in years to come!
Tuesday was another busy day in school with visits from a Digital Product Manager from HMRC who told the children about the many IT related roles and how they work together. We also had a talk about facilities management incorporating the many manual jobs but also roles within management of services too. A highlight for a lot of children was a chef from our school catering provider, Hutchison Catering, where pupils got to make their own pasta dish! We welcomed George from Newcastle University back to take us through the ‘Cell Detectives’ workshop and put his career under the microscope! We also had a trainee solicitor visit from Ward Hadaway, a local legal firm, who explained about the different careers in law and what this could involve. On top of all that, twelve lucky pupils had a tour of the Dog and Cat Shelter and as well as making lots of new animal friends, were able to find out about the day-to-day routine of running the shelter and how rewarding it can be to re-home cats and dogs.
Wednesday brought a visit from a doctor who specialises in the delivery of babies, but was able to tell us all about the many different types of doctors and the intense training required to secure a role in this field. We also heard from a nurse – another job that can take many different formats. Northumbria Police had lots of equipment to show the children and explain what they might use this for in their everyday jobs. As well as this, we found out more about sports coaching skills from Newcastle United Foundation and a group of children visited Boo-K Flowers in Heaton. A varied and busy day but we still weren’t quite done yet!
Our final day of careers week on Thursday didn’t disappoint! Fifteen lucky pupils got to experience life in a corporate office at the EE Mobile Office. Within school, we had an academy under 18 player from NUFC talk about their football career – a job many of our pupils aspire to! Not only did we see some real-life magic tricks, but pupils also found out about how much hard work and preparation goes into being a magician and making a living out of working in the entertainment industry. We also had our annual visit from Rachel at Dogs Trust, who explained not only about her role in education and schools with Dogs Trust, but about the roles within training of dogs or ‘canine carers’ who look after dogs while they are being rehomed. We had a scheduled visit with a solicitor and director of a law firm, but unfortunately they were held up in court and weren’t able to make it, demonstrating how busy this role can be!
A common thread throughout all of the talks over this week is that no one will hand out your dream job, and that hard work, determination and passion are required to get to where you want to be. These are all skills that pupils can be practising right now in their work in school and extra-curricular activities. Choosing a career path is not an easy decision to make and careers week has really taught us just how much variety of roles there are in the world of work. There may even be jobs not invented yet with the role technology and AI are playing in the modern world. We hope that this week has laid the foundations for our KS2 pupils, giving purpose to what they do at school and opened up their eyes to the opportunities available to them.
