This annual event provides a focus on future careers at an important stage in the academic calendar, helping to support young people, particularly those who are about to leave high school education, develop awareness and excitement about their future options.

Throughout the week, students from across all years at Withernsea High School benefited from a number of careers-related activities both in and out of timetabled lessons. These ranged from an enterprise day exploring the problem of plastic waste, through to opportunities for students to learn about careers terminology and their teachers’ own career progressions.

The week of events launched on the back of the school’s Year 9 options process – an important milestone where 13/14-year olds make choices about the subjects they wish to study throughout their final two years of high school.

In Key Stage 3 (Years 7, 8 and 9), students experience a wide range of subjects. In Key Stage 4 (Years 10 and 11) all students continue to study a core group of compulsory subjects, including English, Maths and Science, however they can also make choices regarding specific optional subjects that they want to carry forward for future study. This allows them to refine their learning with a view of preparing them for post-16 options and future careers.

To help students make informed decisions, the school hosted another successful Careers Fair alongside the Year 9 options evening. As a fundamental element of the school’s Careers Programme, these successful fairs provide the perfect platform for students to engage with a range of business leaders and representatives from the world of further education and training.

This years’ event attracted representatives from approximately 25 local and national employers who, alongside education and apprenticeship providers, were on-hand to answer questions and showcase the many varied destinations, options and pathways that are available.

Students in Years 10 and 11, along with their parents/carers, were also invited to attend the event which featured business representation from companies such as Siemens Gamesa, Swift Caravans, Rollits LLP and Martin Williams (Hull) Ltd, while the world of further education was represented by colleges including Wyke, Bishop Burton, Wilberforce and East Riding College.

Event feedback from visitors and students alike was unfailingly positive. Brendon Smurthwaite, Community Manager at PBS Construction, said: “The event was well organised and went well. Having the parents there with the students just made it so much more engaging.”, while Lorna Beaumont from East Riding College added: “Withernsea High is a school that is so inclusive of all providers and I feel that the students there are really given a lot of choice. This will hopefully mean that they go on to make their own informed choices for a successful future.”

Later in the week, twelve students from Year 10 were given an opportunity to attend East Riding College’s own Careers Fair, held at their Beverley campus. During their visit, they were also given a tour of the college’s facilities and learned about the available courses and potential pathways available to them.

For Year 10 as a whole, their engagement in the school’s Careers Programme now begins to intensify as they prepare to explore post-16 options in preparation for the application processes that will open to them at the start of Year 11 in September.

Meanwhile, teaching staff across multiple subject areas helped to reinforce the message of making the right choices by sharing their own employment history with the students. Using posters on classroom doors, they listed their previous jobs and the skills they acquired from them. In some instances, the pathway to their teaching career was seen to be a straight road. For others, it was a more indirect route which saw them take on a variety of unconnected jobs before finding their way into the classroom. This was an inspirational means of showing that some careers come naturally, and others follow a slightly different path to success.

Throughout the week, faculties were also encouraged to use the Skills Builder framework - a progression roadmap used to promote essential skills including speaking, listening, problem solving and leadership, which are needed in any kind of job, and are broadly defined as ‘employability skills’. These skills were applied to daily lessons to highlight their relevance outside the workplace.

Helping to further embed the language of careers, posters containing definitions of different careers terminology, such as flexitime, traineeships and apprenticeships, were positioned around the school to help students become familiar with their meanings and get them used to understanding terminology relating to their role within the workforce of the future.

A highlight of the week saw a return visit to the school from entrepreneur, and former finalist of hit TV programme ‘The Apprentice’, Adam Corbally. After reaching the latter stages of the show’s eighth series in 2012, Adam narrowly missed out on securing a coveted partnership and £250,000 business investment from the formidable Lord Sugar who, despite firing him, clearly still valued Adam’s potential and requested that he ‘keep in touch’.

As a motivational speaker, Adam has helped to inspire well over 100,000 people, including countless students at schools, colleges and universities around the country. Following his first visit to the school last November, where he worked with students on the themes of motivation, resilience, hard work and positive attitude, Adam returned this time to deliver an enterprise day, in partnership with the University of Hull, concerning the problem of plastic waste.

A group of students from Years 8 and 9 enjoyed a motivational talk from Adam, who shared with them his career history and the ups and downs of his life so far. This was followed by the students being given a brief to create a product that would benefit the local and/or global community in the pursuit of reducing plastic waste.

The event allowed students to come up with innovative and original ideas to help reduce the amount of plastic used globally, from upcycling, recycling and finding other materials to use, to drastically reducing the world’s plastic usage. Six teams competed against each other to come up with the best ideas, with one such example being the creation of ‘Wet Nets’ to remove microplastics from the ocean.

Reflecting on the days’ activities, Adam said: "Students were motivated to step out of their comfort zone using creative thinking and come up with a sustainable business idea to make the world a better place, showing amazing creativity on the day and great skills in teamwork, resilience, problem-solving, listening, leadership, and public speaking. The students came up with some amazing ideas and had great fun in the process.

It was great to return to Withernsea High and I loved delivering my Enterprise Day, with amazing energy from the students in the room for the event which was like the Apprentice in the morning and Dragons Den in the afternoon.

Enterprise Days need to be a part of school life to help everyone involved realise that they could be an Entrepreneur, get grades, go on to University, or, in fact, be anything that they want to be.”

Commenting on the Careers Week as a whole Viki Foster, Careers Leader at Withernsea High School, added: “Although we celebrate careers throughout the year, National Careers Week provides the whole school with a perfect opportunity to focus on the importance of establishing successful pathways to future careers.

I would like to thank all of our guests, in particular Adam and all those who supported the Careers Fair, for helping to make the week such a resounding success. Without them, it would not be possible to offer such a wide range of opportunities to our students.”

ABOVE: The school’s Careers Fair was well-attended by a range of employers and education providers. Pictured here are representatives from SHoRes Homecare. 




ABOVE: Apprentice star and motivational speaker Adam Corbally returned to the school to deliver an enterprise day on the problem of plastic. Adam is pictured with Viki Foster, school Careers leader. 

ABOVE:  A group of Year 10 students enjoyed a visit to East Riding College. Here, they are pictured on a tour of the college – exploring its engineering facilities.