Some of our year 12 pupils attended a workplace visit to Deutsche Bank. Pupils were grouped with professional volunteers and done an icebreaking session which was activity called ‘See Run Do’’. The group had to nominate one person to be the ‘runner’. The ‘runner’ from each group had to come to the front and was shown one of the ‘See Run Do’ pictures, for 10 seconds. They then returned to their group and described and explained the picture so that the rest of their group can reproduce it. The Runner was not able to draw on or point to areas of the paper. Once the groups completed this, they were asked to hold up their pictures to compare. This activity was repeated three times. This exercise was to demonstrate, resilience, leadership, critical thinking, and teamwork skills.
Pupils then moved on to a careers speed networking session with the professionals that were in attendance, who spoke to pupils about the trajectory of their own individual career paths. Pupils continued meaningful conversations at a networking lunch before starting their afternoon activities.
In the afternoon, pupils participated in a Dragons Den style activity, they were set a challenge to create a refrigerator. In teams of 6/7 with the support of 2 volunteers from Deutsche Bank, they had to plan its design and budget for it and think about lots of different things like health and safety, how they’re going to publicise it or encourage people to use it, and who is going to be running the productivity. There was a budget of £250,000 per team which had to cover all their costs; so, they had to think of creative strategy’s on how they can get some things for free, for example sponsorship with an existing brand or company!
Once pupils worked out these things, they had to put together a presentation and perform it in front of a panel of 4 volunteers, 3 who were senior leaders and 1 who was an apprentice at Deutsche Bank, that will decide which group will win the money! They had to work collaboratively in their teams and each team had 5 minutes to present their ideas. Every member of the team had to speak about the product, to make it as inclusive as possible.
This event has really provided our pupils with opportunities to enhance their employability skills, through Deutsche Bank’s Born to Be programme initiative. Pupils were exposed to positive role models in a business environment. They were encouraged to work in teams with their peers to develop skills such as project management, negotiation, and communication. This was such a huge and extremely rewarding interaction for all participants.
An enormous thank you to all Deutsche Bank professional volunteers for all their inspirational input with putting on such an extraordinary event for our young people.
More about Deutsche Bank here: https://country.db.com/
More about degree apprenticeships here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/higher-and-degree-apprenticeships
As part of Character and exploring the big question 'where am I going next?' pupils are given the opportunity to meaningfully engage with employers and apprenticeship providers so they can make well informed decisions about their futures.
For more information and guidance about careers education at Ark St Alban's, you can email careers@arkstalbans.org