Year 7 introduction to careers

What does Careers Mean?

What is a Careers Adviser? This is someone who advises you on different job areas, qualifications, but mostly on decisions about what to do next. Careers Advisers talk to you and help you to move onto something else when you leave school be it a job, an apprenticeship, a place at college or at university)

What is Careers Advice? Careers Advice? Careers advice can, and does, come from all sorts of people and places – friends, parents, the internet, television, Teachers and Career s or personal advisers. The point is no one knows you like you do BUT it usually helps to talk things through with other people that either know you pretty well or who know a lot about choosing a career path and where to find information. Impartial advice People who know you can be an invaluable source of help, but you need to think about the effect their position may have on whether the advice they give you is unbiased. That doesn’t mean that you should not seek their help or ignore it when they give it, just weigh it up and consider it when you’re preparing by thinking about your achievements, skills and knowledge.

Careers help at Allerton Grange School More specialised Careers help and support really starts in year 9 for option choice Year 10 work experience Then help for what you are going to do at the end of year 11 be it Sixth form, College or employment Sixth form plans for going to university or getting a job

Careers in Year 7 & 8 Year 7 and 8 is all about developing your self awareness and discovering the types of careers that are out there in the big wide world!! To help you start have a look at some of these websites:

icould I would recommend the Buzz Test and Tycoon Game as they are really good fun and they will help you find out lots of information about the world of work but more importantly the kind of person you are and want to be. http://www.icould.com/buzz/

Future Morph This is a website designed for young people who are interested in Science and Maths but you don’t have to be to explore all the good things on the site and you never know it just might spark an interest in something to do with Maths and Science that you did not realise before! Click on 11-13 and then next steps Have a Go on Game as it asks you what will you be in the future? & Expolre how the things you enjoy link to jobs involving Science. http://www.futuremorph.org

More about icould icould.com/buzz/ With The Buzz personality quiz, you'll discover more about what makes you tick and what you're naturally good at. The Buzz is based on work by Carl Jung and Myers-Briggs which, at over 50 years old, is the most widely used personality test in the world! It has been used to explore Temperament (personality or character) learning styles ( how you like to learn things) relationships (dealings with other people) & stress management (pressure, strain and anxiety) Your profile on icould will provide a little bit of all of these.

How to use it There are four questions. Each one requires you to choose between two traits, which relate to four big aspects of personality: where we get our energy from; how we take information in; how we understand and store that information and our overall approach to life. There's no right or wrong. It's just that one is your preference. From these preferences we can identify you as one of sixteen personality types. Most people are surprised at just how much is revealed based on these four aspects of our personality.

Self awareness So you have already started to develop yourself awareness. It is important to be truthful about yourself in this process. There is no point lying to yourself and telling yourself that you are a good at something if you are not as you will be rumbled at some stage!

Truth Think of 3 things about yourself ( 2 things have to be the truth and 1 has to be a lie then everyone has to discover which one is a lie) Example I have travelled to Bahrain I once had pink hair I used to look after a Rhodesian ridgeback You can ask me 3 questions before deciding which one is a lie

Be honest! The point of this exercise is to demonstrate that most of the time you will be caught out and there is no point in lying about what you are good if you are not or what you have done if you haven’t. When you are aiming for a career be honest!!!

Self awareness and skills Can anyone suggest things that are important skills and qualities for the future? Write down 1 thing that you are good at and 1 thing that you are not good at. Some skills are very important for the future so even if you are not good at them you will have to work at them to help you in the future.