Careers education is an area that is on the up. It is improving each year and as educators we need to be creative. This post will give you ideas to the simple ways to create a synergy between the subjects you teach and careers education.
As set out in the ‘Baker Clause’, schools have a responsibility to set students on the path that will enable them to progress in education and work. How do we seamlessly bring careers education and activities into our lesson? This is all down to how creative you can be. Perhaps you have arranged for a speaker to talk to your students about a subject related career or you have planned a trip. But what else can be done? Students need to gain knowledge, understanding and develop their soft skills. These vary and aren’t limited, however we aim for students to develop a range of skills through career related activities.
Soft skills developed through careers education:
- Resilience – the ability to cope with challenges or setbacks and being able to see the positives
- Proactivity – instead of reacting, taking the initiative to make things happen
- Problem-solving – analysing problems, thinking of solutions and then evaluating
- Communication – using verbal and physical skills to listen and explain what we are feeling and thinking
- Leadership – the ability to get a team of people to work collectively to reach an objective
- Adaptability – the ability to adapt and thrive in changing conditions
- Creativity – the ability to come up with ideas that help solve problems and complete tasks
This year we trialled a task with our year 11 English students, whereby they had to create a Curriculum Vitae (CV) based on a character from the play they were studying: ‘Romeo and Juliet’. In this instance it was Juliet. This may seem strange, but this task continued to support the subject, as they were analysing Juliet, but it also assisted them in gaining the knowledge of a CV, what it is and what it is used for. They left the lesson with the ability to construct a basic CV and also improved their creativity.
Using this style of creativity, we can transfer into other subjects and find ways to link the areas.
Careers activity examples:
- Drama – create a task where students take part in mock interviews with each other. Think of the skills they would improve upon during this task such as resilience, adaptability, creativity, and communication.
- Geography – Ask students to complete an application form for a cartographer’s role. This gives them direct hands-on experience as well as a greater understanding of a Geography-linked job role.
- Sociology – Deliver a lesson based on employment rates in your city, analysing the results and giving you an evaluation on the reasons for this.
- History – Ask your students to create a presentation on the topic you are studying. Presentation skills are vital in the world of work.
- ICT – A lesson that incorporates labour market Information would be useful. Your students could undertake a task choosing a job role and then research its trends and salaries.
- Maths – Use maths to solve problems that students may encounter in the world of work, such as profits, travel times and data entry. Find some resources here: Maths Resources
This list isn’t exhaustive, but by using the combined intellect of your subject departments you could come up with some very clever and creative ways of ensuring your subject is supporting the school to achieve The Gatsby Benchmarks. The Careers and Enterprise Company have compiled lots of useful resources Careers in the Curriculum Resources which can assist your subjects in meeting benchmark 4.
I will sign off using a quote I have always loved. I am sure most of you as educators in some form would agree with; “Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world.” Nelson Mandela
Explore our Cambridge Nationals resources provide students with valuable sector-specific insight and skills to support their future choices.
