Building Transition Links through Careers Learning
Primary school pupils attended an event at Jarrow School to support career-related learning.
The event was part of a North East LEP project to forge stronger links between primary schools involved in the North East Primary Careers Network and secondary schools within its Careers Hub.
The event, held on October 11, was jointly organised by the North East LEP and Jarrow School.
Over 190 pupils from Year 5 and Year 6 in five local schools took part in the ‘careers carousel’ activities, heard from local employers, and had to opportunity to ask questions.
Claire Frater, Careers Advisor at Jarrow School, said: “It is really important to develop strong links with our local primary schools to aid transition so that pupils feel confident, enthusiastic and comfortable visiting our school. We want to help our potential students to develop new friendships and get them used to new teachers and routines.
“It is important that we introduce careers education to pupils at our local primary schools to help them identify links between subject areas that they will be studying at KS3 and 4, with different jobs and industries, so they can see the benefit of working hard to achieve their goals.
“It is the first time we have coordinated an event on this scale for our local primary schools and employers were keen to support us with this, introducing pupils to their industry in a variety of different methods including VR headsets, specialist equipment and presentations. It has been a very positive experience for everyone involved.”
The schools involved were Dunn Street Primary School; Hedworthfield Primary School; Jarrow Cross C of E Primary School; Simonside Primary School; and Valley View Primary School.
Local employers involved in the event included A P Group; NHS; Simpson Group; Sage UK; Royal Air Force; and Tyne Coast College.
Emma Riches, Head of Hedworthfield Primary School, said: “There was a wide array of stalls with many career options that the children would otherwise not have heard of. Hopefully some seeds of ambition have been sewn and some aspirations for careers that they have not heard of before have been made.”
Steve Kew, Product Lifecycle Manager at Sage UK, said: “This was a brilliant event and the children were armed with some challenging questions to keep us on our toes. The pupils were very attentive and a credit to the feeder schools into Jarrow School. It was a great opportunity for my team to come along.”