Lower Sixth Formers enjoy presentations on careers insights

Effective leadership. The Art of Communication. Problem Solving & Analytical Thinking.  Creativity & Innovation.

This is not a personal book wish list for Christmas 2021, this is the title of the series of four presentations our lower sixth formers have enjoyed on consecutive Fridays, all delivered by former pupils. In the past twelve months pupils from all year groups have had access to a huge number of careers insight talks, varying from lawyers, filmmakers, investment bankers, retail managers, politicians, diplomatic officers, surgeons – the list goes on. The benefits of doing these remotely in this period is the fact that all are recorded, so all are available on the school firefly pages for students to utilise at any point.

Members of the lower sixth form have attended many of these talks and the purpose of this group of presentations is to build upon the themes that have often been mentioned. Leadership. Communication. Problem solving. Analytics. Creativity. Innovation. You will struggle to find any of the talks that have taken place where at least one, if not more of these words has not been mentioned by our guest professional. There is also significant research around the topic of ‘skills’ that adds credence to this. For example, the World Economic Forum published the Future of Jobs Survey in 2020 and detailed the top fifteen skills that are likely to be needed in the workplace for 2025. All of the ‘skills’ listed above feature in the top six, with analytical thinking and innovation top of the pile. 

What I hope this block of talks will help encourage is some self-reflection and a stock take amongst the participants in terms of where they feel they are with these skills. It certainly has for me and I feel that one of the advantages of a school like Shrewsbury is that there are always opportunities to build and develop these daily. If our pupils continue to do this, they will be well placed to meet the challenges of the working future with some aplomb!

Many thanks again to our four wonderful speakers.

Floreat Salopia!

Chris Wain

Head of Futures