I found my Centigrade interviews a bit sad in some ways as it just seemed like the pupils I saw hadn't really absorbed much from whatever careers education they had received. They really seemed just about as clueless as I was at that stage, although at least I had the excuse of really having received next to no careers guidance. (The careers adviser at our school did a talk to our maths class about becoming an actuary. Even with my very limited knowledge of the world of work at that stage I knew I had as much chance of that happening as I did of becoming an astraunaut! He really lost all credibility after that talk as far as I was concerned.)
Anyway the first girl was swithering about medicine, nursing, pharmacy, or bio-chemistry. Fair enough partly it depended on grades but she didn't seem to have any idea of whether a job working with people in a caring profession was what she wanted or whether she'd prefer to be behind the scenes with very little people contact. I just felt that was a really fundamental thing to know before having to make a decision. I know they are so young and its very difficult but it would be good if school kids all got some kind of exposure to different work experience and knew a bit more about who they actually are before they leave school. I was wondering if kids at private schools are the same at that stage or if they are more self aware, from the opportunities and activities they get to take part in. Maybe its a big ask I'm making but there just seems an awful lot of potential for mistakes to be made in career choices if you leave school not knowing much at all about yourself. Maybe more focus should be put on this rather than filling in applications forms and other activities further down the decision making process.
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17 years ago
So interesting....I haven't done my centigrade interviews yet, so I have to say I found this article quite surprising. Do you think the pupils at this school had had the opportunity to go on work experience?
ReplyDeleteMaybe if careers education was given more credibility in schools, the pupils would take it more seriously too.
I have to say that both the pupils I saw were poles apart. The girl I spoke to in the morning was very motivated and had researched a lot. She seemed to understand a lot about what we were discussing and what she needed to do next but more importantly she knew what she wanted to do. However, the lad I spoke to in the afternoon had no interest what so ever about what the report said and what I was asking him to think about. He knew what he needed to do, but didn’t want to talk to me about it!!
ReplyDeleteMaybe it isn’t always the careers advisers fault or the guidance staff but maybe it’s more to do with the pupil themselves??
I would love to know the answer to your question about private schools, I think it would be very surprising and great to interview a selection of pupils to see where they are at compared to the pupils we have already interviewed?