We are delighted with the success of our first Year 10 Virtual Careers Focus Day on Wednesday 30th June. Prior to the event, Year 10 students were able to choose their personal preferences from a possible 23 inspirational sessions and were then given their own personalised itinerary for the day, which included a CV session. The sessions were delivered by a variety of presenters, ranging from multinational companies, small businesses, post-16/18 educational providers, apprenticeship providers and Alsager School alumni.
In previous years guests were invited into school to host interactive sessions with the students. However, this year’s event involved the sessions being delivered via live video links, and other than one or two minor technical difficulties (which we all know from using technology more over the last 16 months were always going to be a strong possibility), things went even better than anticipated! Mrs Hewitson, Vocational Learning Leader, said: “We very much missed providing the opportunity for experts in their field to impart their knowledge to our students last year, so were determined to get the day back up and running. Naturally we were nervous about it being our first attempt at a virtual day, but we needn’t have been, as we were thrilled with how it went and with the students’ engagement and feedback too.” Student, Ruby Jones, said: “I learned new things about creating your own business, RAF and Law, policing & forensics. This helped me understand what is needed to pursue any of them.” Faith Bloor said: “I am rather interested in the childcare area after today! It was extremely entertaining as well as inspirational and I wish to continue in developing this interest” and Finn Sheldon said: “The speakers were really informative and gave loads of information.”
At the start of the day students also benefitted from a motivational talk from keynote speaker, Chloe Tatton, Business Relations Co-ordinator from Franklyn Financial Management. Regarding the event, Chloe said: “It was great to speak to the students at Alsager School and give them an insight to life as an Apprentice at Franklyn and my journey to getting to where I am today. We thoroughly enjoy working with Alsager School on a number of different projects and it is amazing to see how focused and thoughtful the students continue to be about their futures and the opportunities ahead of them. A big thanks to the careers team in providing the students with such a great day and getting us involved.”
It was also exciting to have four of our alumni delivering sessions. Molly Evans delivered a brilliant session on Architecture. Shay Norman inspired students with a session about Apprenticeships and opportunities at Barclays Plc. Joe Kelly, who attended the University of Oxford, ran a session about the university pathway and what it is like to go to university which proved extremely popular amongst the students, and Dan Hancock, Assistant Deputy Head Teacher at Excalibur Primary School, gave a wonderful presentation on careers in teaching alongside an overview of his career journey.
After the success of the day we would like to extend a huge thank you to all of the students and staff involved and to those who helped us make it possible: Village Nursery Group, Bluebird Care, NHS, Chester Storyhouse (Performing Arts), Hydraulics Online (Engineering & Running Your Own Business), Driveworks UK (ICT & Computing), All About STEM, British Army, RAF, FA Cheshire Football Academy, LLS Sport, Staffordshire University (The School of Law, Policing and Forensics/University Pathways), Harper Adams University (Veterinary Care) and Newcastle College (Hair and Beauty/College Pathways).
