Inspirational Career Carousel for Year 7’s at Bridge Learning Campus

At the end of last academic year, Year 7 students at Bridge Learning Campus had a jam-packed day with inspirational sessions from a variety of employers as they started their first steps on their career journey.

The theme across the day was ‘independence’ with one student reflecting on the day ‘sometimes you work in a team, sometimes on your own’ – a great takeaway from the day highlighting the variety of activities the students engaged with.

Arup’s interactive session got students redesigning old buildings in Bristol, out of cardboard, through the lens of sustainability whilst learning about practical careers in engineering. Continuing with the theme of creativity, Bauer Media Outdoor‘s session focused on advertising where students were tasked with creating their own flavour of ice cream and designing a poster to advertise this.

In an outdoor session with The Avon Wildlife Trust students were ecologists for an hour! They learnt how to use the kit in an ecologist’s tool bag including quadrats and bird spotting with binoculars. West of England Media and Arts delivered a human sculpture workshop which got the students up and active as well as thinking about careers in fitness, wellbeing and the creative sector.

Students enjoyed a session with Money Ready on financial independence, where they were guided through games and a budgeting challenge to help them get to grips with saving and spending money. Lots of students highlighted this session in their feedback with one student reflecting ‘I learnt many life skills, for example the one about money I learnt how to save money.’

Year 7’s SEND students had a programme of interactive activities with employers. Galliford Try set the students a building challenge while Avon Fire & Rescue taught students about fire safety and how the kit a firefighter uses protects them from danger. Cratus Communications session got creative, involving redesigning an area of land local to the school and Babcock set students a buoyancy boat building challenge which went down very well. One student reflected on the day ‘The stuff we did today, made me change my mind about the work world.’

When employers were asked which aspects of the visit was most rewarding, one volunteer highlighted ‘being able to engage with the children and talk about engineering’. A member of staff from the school mentioned that one of the most useful aspects of the day for the young people was ‘learning about career opportunities’.

Overall, the feedback was overwhelmingly positive for the day, with students noting ‘it was fun’ and ‘it helped me understand about different career options’. When students were asked whether the information they received on the day was useful, 94% agreed. When asked if they would use this information in helping making decisions for their future, 82% agreed and 89% agreed they felt more informed about the careers and post 16 options available to them after the session.

We’ve already starting planning the next carousel for these students as they move up into Year 8, with another careers day planned for them this month!