World of Work Week inspires students at Bellerive FCJ Catholic College

As part of Bellerive’s wider careers curriculum, Career Connect hosted an interactive, engaging, and diverse three-day World of Work event for over 140 Year 10 girls.

With the aim of inspiring, educating, and preparing the students for careers involvement, the World of Work event included a variety of events and activities, allowing for all bases to be covered.

Our advisers presented the purpose of the event to students as a week to:

• raise aspirations and think about your future and next steps

• gain an insight into various industries

• have the opportunity to meet employers from a range of industries

• learn about the variety of post-16 options

• experience completing an application and mock interview and gain feedback

• develop, build, and identify key transferrable skills required for the workplace.

Providing engagement with employers in a variety of scenarios, the Year 10 girls were able to ask questions, discuss career paths, and engage in collaborative activities that showcased their skills and knowledge to employers.

Day One: Enterprise Events, Challenge Workshops, and Next Steps Talks

The students were split up into small groups and set an enterprise task to design a “Hotel of the Future”. Breaking out into rooms to allow for collaboration, design, and innovation, the students designed hotels taking into consideration location, target audiences, aesthetics, facilities, costs, marketing strategies, and technological advances. They physically designed the hotel to show the panel what it looked like and produced a business plan and presentation which they pitched to employers.

Employers from CMA CGM, Sellafield, The Bibby Line Group, DWP, The Bid Company, Roberston Construction, and AECOM then judged the students based on their teamwork, how well they presented their ideas, the skills they showcased, and their design ideas.

In the afternoon students were able to attend talks based around their next steps with three professionals outlining different pathways.

• All About STEM delivered an ASK Apprenticeship Talk, informing students about the benefits of an apprenticeship, what an apprenticeship is, and where they can find apprenticeships.
• Hugh Baird College explored T-Levels, explaining to the students what T-Levels are, what options are available, and the pathways that benefit from a T-Level.
• Liverpool Hope University spoke about Higher Education options, student life, looking at different course entry requirements, courses and subjects available, and what subjects can lead to what career paths.

The World of Work afternoon saw students enjoying a fun interactive session of challenges, with physical activities based around focus memory and tinfoil construction. The challenge workshops, delivered by Career Connect staff, allowed students to showcase their transferrable skills, reflect on how they approach challenging situations, and how to build resilience and embrace challenges.

Day Two: Meet the Employer Activities, Mock Interview Preparation, Application and CV Sessions and The Big Interactive Careers Quiz

To kick off the next action-packed World of Work day, six employers spoke to students about their careers journey, explaining how paths can vary and change as their interest and positions grew and differed.

The talks were delivered by representatives from CMA CGM, Sellafield, Uniper Seqirus, Merseyside Police, and a new Career Connect Career Adviser, Sophie Rooney, who spoke to students about her career in town planning and the big change in career direction she took to move into her new position.

“It was a fantastic experience speaking to the Year 10 students about urban planning and supporting them through the activities. Many of them were unaware of urban planning as a career so it was rewarding to see their interest grow.

“It was lovely to see students take the initiative to reach out afterwards for further guidance, and it was a great opportunity to draw on both my previous experience as a urban planned, and the new skills I’m developing as a trainee Career Adviser.”

– Sophie Rooney, Trainee Careers Adviser

A portion of Wednesday was set aside to prepare the students for the day three activities as a way of reducing any anxieties and giving them time to prepare for mock interviews. The Mock Interview preparation session was delivered by Gary King from All About STEM as part of the ASK programme.

Wednesday afternoon held a series of activities led by Career Connect staff with workshops around applications and CV building to help prepare students for the path of their choice. The applications the students completed were given to the employers who interviewed them during the interviews.

The students were then able to engage in friendly competition for ‘The Big Interactive Careers Quiz’ which involved interactive games and activities that put their career knowledge and skills to the test. The quiz consisted of multiple rounds with a different theme per round, including: testing listening skills on what they learned over the past two days, a lyrics round all about how to focus – students had to put lyrics of songs in order and got bonus points for singing their songs (which every group did!), a higher or lower round based on jobs and salaries, matching the year to the invention, and pitching a chocolate bar in 30 seconds.

Day Three: Mock Interviews

Day three of World of Work saw Mock Interviews, run all day by employers and representatives from 19 different companies. The volume and variety of staff conducting the interviews meant that every student had the opportunity to speak directly to employers in a one-to-one interview setting.

“I really enjoyed the day. It was very well organised, and I think the students seemed to get a lot out of it. I think this was because of the amount of time and preparation that they had put into interviews.

“I was very impressed with their range of answers and examples given to back up their replies.”

– Peter Malia, NHS

Thank you to our employer and education participants

A huge thanks to the staff from A&B Engineering, Liverpool John Moore’s University, Hope University, Robertson, Seqirus, Bibby Line Group, University of Liverpool, RAF, DWP, Randstad Education, Bristol Myers Squibb, Amey, Carmel College, Hugh Baird College, Health and Safety Executive, University of Liverpool Maths School, Merseyside Police, NHS, and our own team at Career Connect, for getting involved in delivering the mock interviews and engaging in our activities and sessions throughout the week!

Want to know more?

If you are a school or college looking to hold inspiring career events, achieve a Quality Award accreditation, find an impartial careers adviser, discover a digital careers tool that will change how you report engagement, or discuss any other way that we can help you, contact us via [email protected].

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