Next week, our year 10 pupils will be switching out their school days for work experience. We are proud to be one of a very small number of schools to still offer a work experience opportunity for pupils of Senior school age. The purpose of work experience has evolved over the years, as has the job market. Many years ago, careers were far more trade or occupation based, and individuals could follow a very set route. It was easy to work back from your career of choice and decide whether that meant University, preceded by A Levels, or an apprenticeship. Nowadays, a quick scroll through LinkedIn shows a wealth of jobs that didn’t seem to exist twenty years ago, or perhaps have just had an update: Growth Manager, Content Creator, and Bunker Trader are all real jobs held by some of my connections, and while I understand many of the words, I’m not sure I quite understand what they actually mean in the context of a job role. Work Experience for young people these days is not really about experiencing a job you would like to do in the future, but experience ‘work’ more generally and some of the skills useful to any role: Interacting with people, taking instruction and showing initiative, travelling to and from a place of employment, and exploring application of skills in ways they hadn’t considered.
Earlier this week the Government announced the first subjects to be part of the new V (Vocational) Level qualifications aimed at preparing individuals for future work. These will launch from 2027 and will be in education and early years, finance and accounting, and digital. These announcements and the plans revealed in the recent ‘White Paper’ indicate a positive move towards an education system that promotes a broad range of applicable skills and moves away from children settling into rigid pathways from Year 10, thinking ‘I must do subject X at GCSE if I want to do X career’. Like our work experience programme, it’s about broadening skills and horizons to be adaptable to the careers of the future.
I wish our Year 10 pupils all the best for their placements next week, and hearing about it on their return. To give you a flavour of what might be possible for those pupils looking to next year and beyond our pupils have placements at:
Crich Tram Museum
Local Primary schools
Local Estate Agents
University of Nottingham
Consultancy Firms
Aero-Engineering based firms
It was great to see some of you last week at the Pupils Vs Staff Year 11 football match. This event was a ‘soft launch’ for future events which are planning for the twilight slot of late afternoons, immediately after school which we hope pupils will enjoy and parents can support where possible. If you haven’t already read it, please enjoy our match report:
Last Friday saw Nottingham play host to the match of the century. Forget your local derby, the FA cup final, Champions League, and even the World Cup – tonight was the match that mattered: Hollygirt Staff Vs Year 11.
Despite appearing to have selected their team kit from the lost property bin outside the sick bay, the Staff team were far more cohesive on the pitch. The year 11 squad had pinned down tactics and had all the fancy footwork but made the classic error of youth in going all in and all out on the attack but after 10 minutes had a 2-0 lead. A quick application of Voltarol at half time meant that while the staff team may not have loosened up entirely, they certainly couldn’t feel it anymore and they pushed on through to level up with 5 minutes left on the clock.
Tensions were high, but the game ended in a very diplomatic 2-2 draw. Calls for penalties were quickly dismissed as Mrs Brimblecombe has already packed away the goalie gloves.
A wonderful time was had by players and spectators; there is already talk of a rematch and we look forward to more matches like this one.
Ever Onward and Upward
Ms Purdy