On Thursday, 14^th July we delivered the final part of the ‘World of Work’ Programme to the Year 6 students of the Chalfont St Peter Academy. The aim of the programme is to encourage students to explore lots of different jobs and to consider the skills required to carry out the roles. Research shows that children do better in school if they have work aspirations and to have work aspirations, they need to know which jobs exist.

Over the 3 sessions our sixth formers presented a number of activities to the students which involved brainstorming a number of jobs, learning about ‘open’ and ‘closed’ questions , completing a self-reflection exercise and doing some acting to work on body language.

I invited some visitors for the second session.  These included, a group production manager of magazines such as Good Food, Top Gear and Children’s magazines, a nano-scientist , a virologist and a hairdresser.  The children spent time interviewing the guests to understand fully the content of their jobs. 

We are extremely pleased with how the sessions ran.  The sixth formers demonstrated some excellent facilitation and presentation skills and engaged so well with the children.  All the visitors commented on how amazingly engaged the year 6 children were and how professional all the sixth formers were;  they were an absolute credit to our school.

Feedback from our new Head Girl, Jess Keyes: My experience of the ‘World of Work’ Programme was so rewarding!   I feel I gained experience in the following skills:

• communication - having to adapt and explain things differently to how I might talk to someone of my own age
• teamwork – sharing of ideas and adapting the programme to best suit us as Facilitators
• self management in having to make sure I was organised when attending all the meetings
• creativity in having to make sure the tasks were engaging and informative.

I think, after seeing the feedback from the programme, we should definitely consider taking it to other primary schools because the children definitely took something away from the experience that it is not only finding something you like and getting the grades, but ultimately how you come across and present yourself to others which is really important!

I honestly loved the experience, gained loads of valuable skills and worked with the best people ever.  I want to do it all over again!! 

A few comments from the year 6 students include:

I plan to work harder to get the exams I need for a job

I want to start to plan my job now!

I plan to look at the skills I am good at and what job includes those skills

I’ve really enjoyed learning that I already have lots of good skills that I can use and develop in the World of Work.