It’s A Capital Experience

The Sixth Form College, Solihull now has three Career Academies and our latest cohort of students kicked off their involvement in this exciting programme with a trip to London recently to take advantage of the day-long ‘A Capital Experience’ event

Organised by national business-education charity Career Academies UK, the day involved around 1,300 students from across the UK, as well as over 75 leading London-based employers such as AstraZeneca, AXA, Barclays, Clifford Chance LLP, Lloyds Banking Group, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Fujitsu, RSA, Royal Mail and Santander.

Our Career Academy students come from our BTEC Business, BTEC IT and BTEC Applied Sciences courses and the students all travelled down together. Although they joined up for the same activity in the afternoon, they started off with morning events at appropriate businesses for their courses, for a ‘behind the scenes’ look at how the organisation works, including a workplace tour.

The Business Career Academy students visited BDO Stoy Hayward, a leading firm of Chartered Accountants. They were given a detailed introduction to the firm's recruitment and selection procedure for both graduates and school leavers. Hints and tips were given on completing application forms, how to act in interviews and attending assessment centres. A question and answer session gave students the opportunity to find out more about careers in accountancy and the starting pay they can expect.

For the Science Career Academy students a visit to the Institution of Engineering and Technology was their morning activity. While there, they were given advice about applying for jobs in the engineering sector. A firm called F1 in Schools gave a presentation, providing the students with all kinds of advice, from applying for the different type of engineering degrees, the different type of entry routes and the bursaries and funding they offer. They also talked about the various competitions they hold, such building a formula one car using one of their kits provided and the students got a chance to compete with other schools to race the car on a special track. The schools with the fastest cars are going to be entered in to a draw, the winner of which could go to an exhibition in Abu Dhabi!

Meanwhile, the IT students got a taste of life at e-skills UK, one of Britain’s most influential organisations. They took part in workshops that helped develop employability skills for the IT sector, and also enjoyed virtual campus demonstrations and feedback sessions, as well as Cyber security training.

 

 

After the morning visits, all the groups joined up again and made their way to the Royal Festival Hall, where they got the chance to network with other young people from across the UK, taking part in the programme and participated in business-related activities to boost their employability skills.

During the afternoon, they received valuable advice from motivational speaker Action Jackson; adventurer Tori James, who was in the first ever all-female team to complete the Polar Challenge, a gruelling 360 mile race to the magnetic North Pole; and Career Academies UK Chair, Heather McGregor. The afternoon was led by Master of Ceremonies Lee Jackson, the UK’s most experienced school and college motivational speaker and author of ‘How to be Sick [great] at School’.

‘A Capital Experience’ is the biggest national one-day event in the Career Academy calendar and kicks off the two-year programme for young people taking part. We have been running the programme for 3 years, but only in Business; the IT and Science Career Academies are brand new and those students have got off to a great start by attending ‘A Capital Experience’. They can now look forward to a structured programme of internships, mentoring, motivational lectures and visits.