I’ve just been involved in a small way in a FB group for Careers Leaders and someone posted a question about a condensed 30 minute CEIAG sessions and what happens if a student doesn’t show up. If the teacher should go and get the student for the remaining 20 or so remaining minutes?
Obviously there were a range of views from ‘they forget they lose out’ to ‘yep, put on your corridor shoes and go and get them’. Also it was reported by the Original Poster (OP) that there was plenty of support in school and reminders / texts etc to help students remember…but some still chose not to attend. It all just made me a bit sad and irritated to be honest.
What if the student was anxious about a meeting?
What if they didn’t know what they were aiming for?
What if they were behind in class and wanted to stay in the lesson?
What if, like any adult, they felt ill-prepared for a meeting about their future? The OP then said it was like the school was box-ticking, and I’d agree. And that is what really irritated me the most.
We’re STILL in some way trying to put students onto a pathway that is decided / promoted / driven on the back of 30 minutes with an advisor. An advisor who is compromised by lack of time or pressure to ‘get all the interviews done’
A #CEIAG professional shouldn’t be put in this position and although on the face of it, it’s better than no CEIAG session at all, it’s not much better.
This is why we need a seismic change in our approach to #careers and futures guidance. The world has changed in the past year in immeasurably through #COVID19 and through Brexit and it’s going to have a massive effect on the future of work and employment in the UK and across the world. Pretending it isn’t won’t help anyone least of all young people in the Class of 21 / 22 / 23 / 24 etc. When Unilever employing 128,000 people says they’ll never go back to full-time 9 to 5 in the office 5 days a week, then there’s big shifts happening. We need to help young people to understand what these changes may mean to their hopes of a sustainable career and help them to see ALL their skills and abilities from an early age, understand how useful their skills are and what they could do with them.
Ask a Year 8 or 10 what they’re good at and you’ll get very likely “dunno” or “nothing”. It’s our job to help see, recognise, understand, relate to and be proud of their #skillsand abilities AS WELL as their academic subjects because their career pathways are going to be very different from those in earlier generations. They’re going to need to be flexible in their approach towork and their #careerand flexible in the WAY they will be working. Nothing in the future is predictable and in 2021 it’s less predictable than ever. We need to change how we support young people and that’s why I wrote #TheLadder. Box-ticking serves no one.
If you’d like me to speak at your school and deliver either a CPD session for your staff – ALL staff, not just careers staff – or your students about how they can develop their own ladder, then please get in touch.
To buy a copy of the book please visit my Author page OR go to the Crown House website.
Bernie.