Each year, Aquinas students are able to attend a series of career talks and workshops to help them explore possibilities and work towards developing their career planning. L6 students of Aquinas College were taken off the normal timetable day to attend a special drop-down careers day. All L6 Aquinas students were provided with the opportunity to attend up to 6 career insight sessions from a wide range of local and national employers and companies. We were also thrilled to welcome back former Aquinas students who provided insightful talks about their career journeys since their days at Aquinas College. We also wanted to support our students consider their next immediate steps after Aquinas, whilst also considering how to find relevant work related experiences.
The learning outcomes we wanted students to achieve from the event are from the Careers Development Institute framework (to support individuals towards a positive career), the theme revolved around ‘Exploring Possibilities.’ Aims of the event included for students to feel more confident about the skills needed for the world of work, finding/accessing information about careers of interest and how to market themselves for future opportunities.
The college also supports working towards the Gatsby Benchmarks, including for students to have encounters with employers and employees, with further and higher education, learning from career and labour market information and linking curriculum learning to careers. Aquinas Careers Day is also a major event in our calendar year which is part of the college’s overall careers programme.
We were excited to welcome a wide range of guest speakers, who provided crucial and fascinating insights into the world of work. In total, over 120 guest speakers participating in just over 200 sessions. We also included additional workshops to support students with finding work experience, exploring universities and their courses, personal statements and the apprenticeship/degree apprenticeship recruitment process. Feedback from the Aquinas Careers Day event from our students included:
- “Thoroughly enjoyed the day. I learnt a lot about subjects I am interested in.”
- “I learnt a lot more than I did before and am confident with my future choices now.”
- “A very enjoyable experience, all the talks were good.”
- “The degree apprenticeship workshop was really useful as it told us everything about it.”
- “I feel a lot more confident in making a decision about my degree, where my degree will take me and what the industry I want to go into requires.”
- “Loved the amount of people that came in for media, really interesting and helpful!”
- “The entire day was really nice, so many interesting people and stories…”
- “The day was really helpful and has made it clearer as to what I want to do.”
On behalf of Aquinas College, thank you to everyone who gave up their time and participated in our careers event!
John Morrison – Careers Leader/Head of Careers. john.morrison@aquinas.ac.uk
