What else does the Careers Department offer?
Work Experience:
We strongly recommend girls do some sort of work experience and although this is not obligatory we find that those students who follow our advice find this experience extremely rewarding. Most girls find suitable placements with the help of their parents, family and neighbours, for instance. Some industries are more difficult to find placements in than others and it is a very good idea to start looking as early as September.
The best time for work experience is immediately after the GCSE examinations, that is in the summer months before the start of the AS-Level courses. Ideally, girls should sample 2 different working environments, each for a week. If they already have some idea which career path they wish to follow in future then it might be a good idea to seek placements in related professional fields. However, at that point many girls are still quite undecided as regards a future career and any experience will be useful as it will open their eyes to the demands, challenges and also rewards of working world.
Building up a portfolio of work experience will not only be invaluable for their personal development but will also help them later with their university and job applications.
Visits to companies:
In the autumn term there is a careers trip for interested girls in Year 12 and sometimes Year 11. In recent years we have visited the BBC, the Ritz Hotel, Inner Temple and Middle Temple, Morgan Stanley and the Museum of the Bank of England to give the girls the opportunity to look behind the scenes of important companies and get a taste of the working world. Often, access to these companies is gained with the invaluable help of parents who support our careers efforts.
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Careers Forum:
The Careers Forum happens every year on the last Thursday of November and is by now a well established event for all the students from Year 9 through to Year 12 as well as their parents. We normally have 4 to 5 speakers who take about 20 minutes each to talk about their profession or careers related issues. Reading about careers can be a bit dry at times and we are therefore very grateful to these practitioners who come into our school to share their enthusiasm and experience with our students. We try to offer a mix of topics in order to reach the interests of as many girls as possible. By the time a student has reached the Lower Sixth Form they will have heard first-hand testimony from practitioners in 16 different fields and we hope that this will broaden their horizon and stimulate them in finding the right path for them. We are very grateful to the speakers, may they be parents, former pupils or representatives from professional bodies, as this programme could not be delivered without their help.
The Careers Library:
You are looking for help with your GCSE or A-Level choices? You are researching your university course? You would like to find out how best to plan your gap year? In this case, our dedicated careers library will help you find the answers. There are books, magazines, university brochures to help as well as two PCs to research online. The careers library is a quiet place mainly used by the Sixth Formers for their careers planning but girls from Year 9 onwards are introduced to its benefits and are, of course, very welcome to use the material available.