Preparing students for the future is a key priority at Blackheath High School. We strive to furnish every student, from Nursery to Sixth Form with the key skills, knowledge and confidence they need to flourish and succeed in the world. Our Futures programme has been designed to empower girls for life beyond education, equipping them with the skills and competencies predicted by the World Economic Forum as essential for success in an ever-evolving, digitally interconnected global landscape. 

GDST CareerStart 

Our Futures team, led by Ms Day, are experts in sourcing outstanding opportunities to help students develop intellectual curiosity and appreciation of different careers.  In September, we were delighted to host the first GDST CareerStart webinar of the academic year, with a hugely engaging and informative talk from neuroscientist, Professor Sam Wass. 

Sam studied at Oxford, London, and Cambridge, and currently runs the BabyDevLab, a group of 25 researchers studying early brain development, based at the University of East London. Sam's research explores how early life stress develops, and how it influences attention and learning in typical and atypically developing children (including ADHD, ASD, anxiety and others). He appears regularly on TV and radio as an expert in child development, including as an on-screen child psychologist in five series of the multi-award-winning Channel 4 show ‘The Secret Life of 4- and 5-Year-Olds'. 

Professor Wass explored the different roles of a scientist in UK, the funding landscape, university teaching, and gave some interesting examples of his own work, including writing reports for NGOs, expert consultancy for corporates, policy work for government and his media appearances. Huge thanks for such an informative talk. 

The GDST CareerStart programme runs throughout the year and has a whole host of fascinating careers talks in the agenda for this year, including dentistry, criminology, pilot training, veterinary medicine, careers of the future (data science, software engineering and cyber security) and apprenticeships. [Link?] 

Wollstonecraft Speaker Series 

Another feature of our Futures programme is the long-standing Wollstonecraft Speaker Series, in which we invite external speakers to talk to our Sixth Form students about their careers, the pathways and overcoming challenges along the way.