Career Footsteps at Dearne Advanced Learning Centre

The penultimate Career Footsteps event was set under the backdrop of the Dearne Valley in Yorkshire. On Friday 13 July, the year nine students at Dearne Advanced Learning Centre (ALC) were joined by volunteers from a diverse range of jobs for a careers speed networking session. Among the volunteers was a Lecturer, Physiotherapist, Chartered Management Accountant and a National Mental Health Lead.

Career Footsteps is a programme, run in partnership with the Edge Foundation, that aims to open students’ eyes to the wide range of routes they can take into the world of work with a focus on vocational and technical paths. Therefore, 6 of the 12 volunteers who attended this Career Footsteps event trained via a vocational route.

During the careers speed networking session, the students had the opportunity to ask a number of volunteers questions about their job and how they got there. They learnt about different roles that they had never heard of before such as Sales Engineer and Procurement. The volunteers shared their passion and demystified their careers to the engaged students, and empowered the students to learn more about the different career pathways and vocational routes available.

Students commented on the willingness of volunteers to answer questions openly. Feedback included:

“Companies can offer multiple chances.”

“I liked that apprenticeships are becoming more common and that you don’t have to go to university.”

“I liked it because it helped me to understand what to do in the future.”

“I liked that we could see the options available to us and steps we can take and that most jobs can have apprenticeships.”

“That you can get an apprenticeship and get paid for it.”

“I found a lot more jobs that were available to me”

The students were impressed by the volunteers they met, and felt the day enabled them to think more carefully about the options available to them with relation to their GCSE choices.  As one student nicely phrased it “my options for the future are more open.”

Calling all teachers. We have a number of volunteers registered who have trained through apprenticeships and other vocational routes. If you would like to help highlight the great opportunities vocational routes and alternative pathways can offer your students sign up today at the top of the page, and start inviting volunteers to your school.

Want to inspire young people and help ensure they are as well informed of the breadth of options open to them as possible? Sign up at the top of the page to become a volunteer with Inspiring the Future.