Last week was national careers week in the UK which is a widespread celebration of careers pathways. As always, we like to support celebrations by participating in as many events which will help raise the aspirations of our students.

The week started off with a very exciting visit by Stagecoach for many of our Year 7, 9 and 10 students. A representative brought into school one of the new electric buses. Students took part in a seminar involving an authentic learning experience of working for stagecoach. They had a real sense of what it would like to be an employee. We then took the students to the bus where they got to learn about the new features, why it was designed in this way and how they benefit the environment. Students and teachers got to sit in the drivers seat which was incredibly exciting – not to mention beeping the horn. 

Year 8 were greeted by a representative from SETA and an apprentice to talk about all of the engineering opportunities with the company. They learnt about how to access the career pathways and what this would look like for their future. Students as always were very engaged and had lots of interesting questions about wind turbines and future technologies impacting engineering.  

On Wednesday students from Year 7 and 10 met Professor Ian Green MBE. Ian gave an incredibly inspiring talk going through his journey. Ian was born and raised in Sunderland and went onto a really interesting career pathway starting off in one of Nissan’s first factories. He then helped the growth of Nissan involving him working in locations all across the world and opening new factories. As part of Ian’s role he developed some of the apprenticeship standards which led to him being awarded an MBE from the late Queen – he was in fact one of the very last ones. He spoke about his visit to Buckingham Palace and the hour he spent with King Charles. It was a real pleasure to listen to such an inspiration and the students learnt a lot. 

As the week drew to an end we had a visit from Marion who works as a learning advisor for Gentoo. She spoke with students from Years 8, 9 and 10. She went through the many many careers options that the company has to offer. She also gave some amazing advice on making sure students work hard in school so to allow them to have options when they are older. 

It has been an eventful week at Sandhill View where we hope to have planted the seeds for some inspirational journeys for our very own students so that they can lead a happy, fulfilling, well rounded life.