The Deepings School celebrates National Careers Week

The Deepings School , part of Anthem Schools Trust, has celebrated National Careers Week (NCW) this month.

National Careers Week is a one-week celebration of careers guidance across the UK, the aim is to provide a focus for careers guidance activity at an important stage in the academic calendar to help support young people develop awareness and excitement about their future pathways.

A number of activities took place at The Deepings for NCW, the week began with Year 7 students taking part in a series of tasks, delivered by a team from the excellent Bright Futures organisation. The overall theme was entrepreneurship, developing some key employability skills along the way, including being able to communicate effectively and working in a team. Students had opportunities to design and create a ‘Makarapa’ - inspired by the man who invented a protective helmet during the South African football world cup and they also took part in Festival Frenzy! This looked at how businesses need to take calculated risks to try to make an overall profit.

Y8’s activities explored the use of branding and students then had to design and create a countertop card holder for a gift card called Greenspend, focussing on the three key areas of profit, planet and people. There were some very innovative designs and students developed their numeracy skills as they bought and sold materials, looked at profit and expenditure and finished by ‘pitching’ their design to the facilitator.

The school also welcomed Joanne Earth from the Department for Work and Pensions who delivered an assembly to Y8 students and talked about the different pathways and careers within the Civil Service.

She came in again to speak to Y9 students before they moved to their Bright Futures activities. Their tasks involved looking at the key skills employers are looking for and discussing a job specification to help identify the most suitable candidates from a range of CVs. The final task was to design and create a roller coaster theme park ride, using the paper resources provided, with prizes for the best design and longest marble run!

On Thursday it was the turn of Year 10, who are preparing to go out on work experience in May. Students were given a series of mini tasks to develop their team working and problem solving skills. They also looked at negotiation and listened to a presentation from Sir Alan Sugar.

The week finished with a number of Y11 students taking part in activities linked to revision, study skills, progression routes and their English literature novels. Students found out about The Leitner System and created some great flashcards based on questions relating to their English texts and Biology. This system helps to focus on the gaps in knowledge and the boxes represent a tangible way of reflecting your own memory.

Kirstie Johnson, Headteacher at The Deepings School said:

“Young people leaving education today are likely to have multiple careers in their working life and it’s so important that they leave school with their eyes open to all the options out there. I am so pleased that we put on such a wide variety of activities this National Careers Week and I hope the children both enjoyed them and took a lot from them.”