Year 8 Careers Conference | Newminster Middle School

On Friday 5th October, Year 8 students entered the world of work and for the first time ever, the annual Careers Conference took place at Linden Hall.

The core purpose of the day was to provide students with the opportunity to engage with employers from a range of different sectors. The day is a central part of the careers programme for Year 8 students as they will soon embark on their journey towards high school education and be required to make GCSE choices very early on. We hope that this day. along with various other planned events in Year 8 will help prepare the students to make informed career choices for the future. The event highlighted alternative careers pathways such as apprenticeships as well as the more traditional routes into employment.

The careers speed dating session involved students grilling employers and Business Ambassadors from a range of local employment sectors to get a flavour of career pathways and typical working days.

The afternoon workshops were delivered by Northumberland Fire and Rescue, Police, RAF and the Navy. The workshops highlighted all of the different roles in various organisations as well as key skills needed to be successful and addressed common misconceptions.

Liz Kinninment, Headteacher at Newminster Middle School, gave a keynote speech to launch the day’s activities.

“At Newminster we are committed to encouraging students to think about their future careers from a very early stage. Being able to offer students the opportunity to experience a live working environment like this is invaluable. The experience certainly opens their eyes to the possibilities available and will hopefully help inspire their future career choices.”

The conference day was delivered in partnership with Northumberland Business and Education Partnership and we would like to thank all of the businesses that made the day a success.

Contributors for the speed dating activity included