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Woodlands Primary School in Gleadless Valley, which is part of Mercia Learning Trust, approached us as they were looking to run some employer engagement activities during their Careers Week.
Whilst See it Be it in Sheffield has previously only worked in Secondary and above, we were looking at piloting some activities with Primary – and given our existing strong partnership with Mercia Learning Trust, this seemed like the ideal opportunity to try something out!
Many of the pupils at Woodlands come from an area with high unemployment rates and therefore don’t have much exposure to different careers and opportunities that may be available to them in the future. They were looking for speakers who could come in and speak to the pupils on their level, highlight the different opportunities in the workplace and challenge some stereotypes about the working world.
The See it Be it team picked some of our best engaged employers who we felt matched the criteria and they were all more than happy to get involved. On the first day, Heather Chapman from The Web Word spoke to the pupils about her career path as a writer and her university journey, whilst John Chapman from Past Lives Ancestry and Research explained his career path in the RAF, and then his love of history, science, and research led him to become a genealogist.
The following day, Emma Pickering from AMEY came in to talk about all the different roles at a large engineering and infrastructure company, and Gareth Roberts from Regather highlighted options available in the food growing industry.
The final day saw Tina Havenhand from MGRW come in and talk about finance and professional services with the pupils.
Heather Chapman said about experience “it was marvellous to talk about my career path with such engaged young students. They had lots of great questions to ask us all. One young girl stayed to say how much she loved science and also hopes to go to university like me.”
Katie Hall, Deputy Head at Woodlands said “we were thrilled with the success of the programme at Woodlands Primary. Witnessing the pupils' enthusiasm and engagement as they explored various career paths and shattered preconceived notions about the working world was truly inspiring. We're eager to continue this and extend our thanks to See It Be It for helping us to build a strong foundation for primary Careers Education"
Following the success of the pilot, we hope to run more activities with Woodlands, starting with an event during Online Safety Week in November. We’ll also be looking to set up a network of staff with responsibility for Careers Education in Primary schools, to look at how we can support them and extend our offer.
If you would like to support our work in Primary schools, or are a member of staff in a school who would like to be part of our network, contact us on seeitbeit@sheffield.gov.uk
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