On Friday 11th November, all Year 9 students were involved in a Careers themed drop-down day. Most of the morning involved students working through a “Dragons’ Den” activity, where they decided what object / service / website / app they were going to invent as a group, before creating a logo for it and gathering market research. Students then prepared their pitches to present to the ‘Dragons’, who were volunteers that attended for the afternoon session. Many of the volunteers were parents and the volunteers’ career histories included CEO’s of a global licence business, career development for Amazon and Instagram, HR director for a serial entrepreneur and product management and marketing for Disney, to name but a few!
The students had some great ideas from a plant pot that changed colour, to a shopping trolley that you programmed and it picked the shopping for you, to shoes that cleaned the floor and a mask that translated your speech into different languages, depending on the country you are in! The Dragons were really impressed with the ideas and the effort that had gone into the pitches, so they were able to give some really constructive feedback to the students.
As part of the day, the students were also really lucky to hear from Gemma Johnson (Senior Vice President for General Merchandise and Buying Director for TK Maxx Europe) who spoke about her career to date, the different pathways into working at TK Maxx and what roles there are within the company. One of the students was also lucky enough to win a prize provided by Gemma!
The day itself was a real success and I would like to thank all volunteers that came in to support the event. They have made a real impact on our students and their understanding of the world of work.
