Career Academy visit to Grant Thornton

Posting by Ranjit Hayer, Career Academy Co-ordinator and Business teacher

Career Academy students get all sorts of wonderful opportunities and the latest one was a visit to a chartered accountancy firm in Birmingham.

As all the students that are part of the College’s Career Academy are on the BTEC Extended Diploma in Business course, Accountancy is a definite career possibility. As such, getting the chance to actually visit an accountancy firm and see what it is really like is so beneficial.

This particular visit was to the Birmingham office of Grant Thornton. We were greeted by David Munton, who is a member of the Local Advisory Board for the College’s Career Academy. He revealed that he had completed his A levels at The Sixth Form College, Solihull and explained the different routes Grant Thornton offer students into tax and auditing.

Grant Thornton run an apprenticeship scheme and several of those apprentices were present to talk to our students and give them an insight into the scheme and the firm.

Two of our Career Academy students (Dipesh and Rittika) also receive guidance from their Grant Thornton mentors – these mentors also presented their career paths to the students to give them examples of what can be achieved and how you can get there.

It wasn’t all talk - we had a go at some activities while we were there. These were the kind of tasks that students might be asked to complete if successful in their applications to become apprentices. The students also learned of the perks of working for Grant Thornton and the social networking that Grant Thornton offer its employees.

I found the visit really informative and enjoyable and I could tell that the students did too. Indeed, David Munton commented on high calibre of student we have in the Career Academy and also commended their questioning!

This is just one example of the benefit that can be achieved by being a part of the College’s Career Academy. As well as visits like this, we have a large number of visiting speakers providing what are known as “guru lectures”, and the students benefit from mentoring and paid internships.

I’ll keep you all updated on the goings-on of the Career Academy via this blog, so keep checking back.