This week pupils at Oakham will be able to immerse themselves in their future thanks to an array of different talks and activities that are taking place for Careers Week.
“Careers week is an opportunity to encourage our Middle and Upper School pupils to really think about their future – be it career options, university choices, apprenticeship availability, and workplace skills,” says Head of Careers Pippa Gibbs. “The aim is to not only get pupils thinking about their future career options, but to really help them start to develop their skills to enable them to access their choices. This year we’re offering more sessions that introduce and encourage key careers skills – including communication skills such as networking and writing a professional email. These are all critical employability skills that we want pupils to learn and practice as early as possible.”
During the week our Careers team, including our full-time Head of Careers, will be encouraging pupils to take part and access the information and skills that best suits their needs. Here’s a glimpse of some of the interesting activities and seminars that our Careers Department have planned for pupils throughout the week:
Creativity and Tech – Lucia Gore who runs Kozi, a course to encourage young creatives to learn the basic skills required for coding and UX design will be talking about her experience as a woman working in the tech industry. Later on in the week our own Head of Computing will be hosting a computer skills and programming workshop too.
FinTech -This is an exciting opportunity to listen to Alan Desira (who has worked in Financial Services for Global Wholesale/Investment Banks and is now a tech/fintech entrepreneur) and Jason Bates (who co-founded two digital banks, as well as a growing Fintech consultancy). They will talk about how traditional banks are set up, the rise of digital technologies in banking and the skills needed to work in the sector.
Studying in Europe and Studying in North America – two different sessions to open pupils’ minds to studying overseas.
Clinical Careers Conference – for those pupils considering a career in medicine.
Employability Skills – there are a variety of different sessions to look at ways to improve employability including ‘build your CV’, ‘communication skills: writing a professional email’, and ‘Multitasking and problem solving’.
Networking & LinkedIn – Caitlin Brennan, Partnership Development Manager for InvestIN Education gives a presentation to help maximise the opportunities of Linked In for networking.
Interview preparation – There are two different sessions to help students – a skills session followed by practice interviews.
Careers ‘Open House’- The careers team will be available in the library every break time to answer all questions about CVs or organising work experience.
The event culminates in a networking event that will see pupils network with employers – not only a great opportunity to meet with, and learn from employers, but also a fantastic chance to put some of their newly learnt networking skills to the test! We are particularly delighted to welcome some alumni to this event, including David Gilman, Senior Director at Sky News.
