Last week our Year 10 students enjoyed two bespoke events, which we have carefully tailored to help them think about and make decisions regarding A- level choices and future Higher Education plans.

To kick off these events on Tuesday, we were delighted to welcome back over 25 Blackheath High School alumnae, who had generously given their time to answer questions about their career and Higher Education choices during a networking session. This was followed by presentations by university liaison personnel, who shared information about a wide variety of courses; Art, Medicine, Law, Liberal Arts, Geography and Degree Apprenticeships. Our speakers came from a range of institutions, including The University of Nottingham, Aston University, Kent Law School and the University of East Anglia.

Students were unanimous in speaking about how useful these experiences had been, for example, “I enjoyed the sessions and they helped me to think about what I might want to study at university”.

We then started our taster day with a presentation given by Karen Kimura, who is the GDST Learning and Development Manager. Karen is a highly experienced educator, who also runs the GDST Careerstart program. Her session titled “Making Decisions” really helped the students to think about how best to formulate pathways that will best benefit each student, as an individual.

Miss Williams and Year 12 students then spoke about A-level subjects and combinations thereof, looking at how various combinations work for differing Higher Education career pathways. The Year 10 students signed up to and used the Unifrog platform, which brings together every undergraduate university course and apprenticeship, as well as other opportunities such as MOOCs and undergraduate programmes overseas. The remainder of the day focused on taster A-level lessons, so that all students have had the opportunity to gain an insight into what it is like when they take the step up to A-level across a variety of subject areas. Again the Year 10 students found the day to be extremely useful, with comments such as “the taster sessions gave me a better insight into what you have to do for that subject at A-level” and “I liked hearing the Sixth Formers' opinions”.

Year 10 will go on to benefit next year from 1:1 sessions with the COA, Cambridge Occupational Analyst professionals and also 1:1 interviews with staff when making their A-level choices.