Spotlight Sessions for Year 11 learners
To support our learners with their Post 16 choices, we arranged a series of ‘Spotlight‘ sessions to give them the opportunity to look further into careers and receive first-hand information on apprenticeships, directly from employers. They had time to ask questions and find out more about the different roles within the organisations. It is so important that our young people are fully informed and have the chance to speak to those doing the jobs, to find out what it’s like to work in a particular sector and what the opportunities are for future progression.
The first of our series of 3 was presented by Darryl Jones, Development Manager at Keltbray, who gave a presentation highlighting careers in Demolition, apprenticeships in Rail along with Civil Engineering. He spoke about the different roles within these career paths and the entry requirements to begin an apprenticeship with them. Keltbray do not have a formal application process, but if any learner is interested in applying, he would happily take CV’s with a cover letter via LDE UTC Careers Lead, Janice Tricks to consider as opportunities open. Darryl kindly sent a number of videos showcasing demolition in action, which was sent out to learners.
Ramboll UK were our second guests, this time we had 7 speakers all talking about their different roles and the routes they had each taken to now be in their chosen field. Careers in Structural Engineering, Digital Development for Transport, Geo-Environmental Engineering and Highway and Infrastructure Engineering were discussed and it was really interesting to learn how each of the presenters had taken completely different paths in education to get to their current role. This session was kindly organised by Sotira Georgiu, Senior Structural Engineer at Ramboll.
The final ‘Spotlight’ session was courtesy of Skanska, one of our UTC sponsors, with the presentation being made by Harry Wain, Learning and Development Manager at Skanska and also a Governor of LDE UTC. We moved away from the usual scope of careers within our STEM specialisms, to consider those within HR and finance. Harry also spoke about academic achievement, employability skills and making career choices. He is passionate about our young people having opportunities to work within industry.
These sessions were well received and will no doubt be something we move forward with more of in future.