The whole of year 8 visited Newcastle University on Tuesday 20 January to take part in a discovery day as part of their careers programme of study.

We had a fantastic day and took part in sessions such as 24 hours in A & E. This saw us all making important decisions about who to treat and in what order to treat them, as well as deciding what treatment to give our patients. What made it more fascinating was each of the patient scenarios we were given were real life cases and we got to find out the outcome of each case too.

The students also got to take part in a session called ‘Universi-tree’ which made the students think about GCSE and A Level choices in relation to degree course options and future careers. We took part in a STEM session which demonstrated to the students the wealth of rewarding careers that exist in relation to STEM subjects. Some of the careers we hadn’t even heard of! We also had the opportunity to think about living on a student budget and took part in a session which highlighted what this would be like in reality.

We concluded the day with a tour of the University Campus in small groups led by student ambassadors. This was an excellent opportunity for the children to ask questions about being at University from someone attending at the moment. It was amazing to see all of the different faculties and facilities available.

Newcastle University were excellent hosts and we all had a really informative day. The University have invited us back to look around the Halls of Residence and talk to existing students about ‘Uni life’. More details to follow.