Futures Newsletter June 2023

FUTURES

OVER 100 UNIQUE opportunities, highlighted so far to WHS students in our Futures Friday newsletters.

Having recently joined Wimbledon High School in the exciting new role of Head of Enterprise, Entrepreneurship & Employability, I have been blown away by the scope and range of opportunities and insights into different careers across all subject areas that the school provides.

Over the past term alone, along with students, I have listened to Ashvi Ilott talk of her remarkable experiences working for NASA and the European Space Agency, heard writer Sally Emerson walk us through her journey from teenage diarist to best-selling novelist, met Tangy Morgan who elaborated on her trailblazing progress through the financial services industry leading to her becoming an advisor to the Bank of England, and experienced tomorrow’s female entrepreneurs demonstrate their prowess by pitching for The Atherton Award in STEM - to mention just a few.

Set the challenge of devising a Futures Programme incorporating new and innovative ways to still further broaden the horizons of WHS students in relation to all things careers and across

DR

Head of Enterprise, Entrepreneurship and Employability

STUDENTS LOOKING FOR CV HELP?

Ask Dr Sharma in Futures Surgery!

WHAT JOBS AND ADVICE DO STUDENTS WANT?

The Girls Futures Report 2022 gives us insight...

FUTURES

We were delighted to welcome the team and a GT Supercar from McLaren to inspire our students and those from partner schools in the opportunities for women in engineering.

all year groups in the Senior School, I have been working alongside Nicola Cooper (Director of Higher Education & Careers) and Ed Griffiths (Head of Sixth) to develop unique offerings which will give our students a leading edge in the increasingly competitive higher education entrance and employment arenas.

I am writing to you today to highlight the progress made to date and to share our exciting plans for the next academic year, as well as to ask for your support.

On this front, I am extremely grateful to parents who have already provided introductions to and / or work experience opportunities in their own industries and businesses.

My 7 years at WHS helped build my self-confidence, and provided a safe space where I felt I could better understand myself and my strengths. I learned the importance of being an effective communicator and building strong relationships with those around me. As a governor of WHS now, I’m absolutely delighted to see how (what we used to call) ‘careers advice’ has developed into something so substantial, and fitting for the professional world of today.

Carmen Palmer Class of 2015 Wimbledon High School

SHEELA SHARMA

Developments so far…

Futures Friday newsletter

This weekly email goes to students in Years 9 to 13 and is a compilation of opportunities for work experience, internships, apprenticeships, gap year planning and higher and further education, allowing students to gain valuable insights into a wide range of careers and industries - both for those with a career in mind and those who have yet to discover their chosen paths by process of experience and elimination.

Most of these opportunities are held virtually, are open to large numbers of students and have simple sign-up processes, making them a great way of gaining insights with minimal effort.

To date, over 100 unique work experience, insight opportunities, apprenticeships etc., have been offered since the first Futures Friday newsletter was published in February 2023.

Futures Fireside Chats

These exclusive Friday lunchtime gatherings of an industry expert with small groups of students allow those interested in further exploring specific careers the chance to ask their deep and burning questions, as well as to network.

At the end of last term, senior government policy advisor, Kayleigh Robson, and a recent recruit to HM Treasury, Rowena Duncan, talked about their very different application and career journeys into the Civil Service.

This term, we have the CEO and Founder of publishing business illumicrate, Daphne Lao Tonge, who is also an award-winning blogger and WHS parent, talking about how she turned her hobby into a business with over 20,000 subscribers every month. New Fireside Chats will be offered for students to sign-up for every term.

I have found the service a great way to explore future career opportunities as not only are there a huge range of different subjects and careers included, but also a range of formats, whether this be work experience, conversations with professionals, or just general tips for applications/CVs.

Jennifer,

Year 12.

Futures Surgery

Every Thursday and Friday afternoon, students from Years 9 to 13 can walk into the Futures Surgery for an individual discussion about careers, perhaps highlighting the areas in which they would like more support or in order to ask about CV writing or work experience applications.

Futures Access beyond WHS

This new scheme allows our students and recent alumnae to access careers advice for up to five years after leaving the school by emailing futures@wim.gdst.net. This ongoing career provision was put in place following feedback from some of our recent alumnae around the lack of satisfactory careers advice being provided by their universities.

I found the Futures service to be useful to help narrow down my options on what I wanted to explore for work experience.

Martha, Year 11

HOW CAN YOU HELP?

Please encourage your daughters (Years 9-13) to check the Futures Friday newsletter each week and explore ideas for possible careers, as well as update their CVs with the opportunities they have taken part in. As far as we are aware, WHS is unique in providing such a regular and comprehensive list of opportunities for our students.

With one of the largest female networks in the UK (and possibly beyond), spanning every profession possible and dotted around the globe, the GDST and WHS provide an exceptional opportunity for young women to find role models, mentors, sponsors and potentially career opportunities.

We aim for Futures Access to provide another avenue through which to get connected and to make links within the broader GDST Alumnae Network.

Coming soon…

Work Experience Bank

Employability Skills: an online toolkit

Something that has become clear through students visiting the Futures Surgery, is the importance of instilling employability skills in them. From CV and cover letter writing, to interview training, knowing how to tackle tricky interview questions, all the way through to being able to confidently negotiate a salary. Our students can gain significant career advantages by being fully equipped in these areas. Over the coming academic year, we will be working at WHS to develop specific resources around employability as a series of masterclasses provided by experts, available as an online toolkit which staff and students can access for both class-based and independent learning as and when needed. This toolkit will be available for all year groups.

Futures in context

Ed Griffiths Head of Sixth

Outstanding individualised care is at the heart of the WHS Sixth Form, and specialist Futures support is central to that vision. We are delighted that our provision is sector-leading, ensuring all students have the support, care and guidance they deserve to stride out from WHS with all the tools at their disposal to strive.

While virtual opportunities provide a convenient way to gain insights into careers with minimal commitment, many of our students would prefer first-hand in-person experiences following these initial opportunities. For some vocational degree courses certain types of in-person work experience are essential (for example, medicine and veterinary degrees), while for others these provide crucial opportunities to convey their passion and interest in UCAS applications and at university and job interviews. Indeed, they may make the difference in securing an interview in the first place. However, finding in-person work experience has never been more challenging and is one of the main frustrations articulated by students attending the Futures Surgery. At WHS we want to be innovative and leading in providing such opportunities, so we will be building our contacts with industry, with a particular focus on industries that presently lack diversity at the top, to better understand the skills and candidate profiles employers are seeking.

Entrepreneurship Programme

We know the importance of an entrepreneurial mindset in the workplace, and how today entrepreneurial skills are important for all careers and individuals and not just those interested in becoming founder CEOs. The development of an Entrepreneurship Programme, integrated with employability skills through the school’s existing GROW Programme across all year groups, will instil the crucial skills of leadership, communication, innovation and financial acumen, among others.

HOW CAN YOU HELP?

As parents of WHS, are you able to provide connections to industry and highlight work experience opportunities offered by your employers or within your own businesses?

Please contact Sheela Sharma at futures@wim.gdst.net to offer support to the Work Experience Bank for WHS students.

A recent Computer Science trip to Google’s London HQ

The Girls Futures Report

Published in Autumn 2022 by the GDST, the Girls Futures Report holds fascinating insights into the opinions, motivations and aspirations of the students at GDST schools. You can read the entire report here.

83% of girls in senior school want to do a job that they enjoy, and two-thirds want to make a difference to society through their careers.

Schools must place the issues of economics in front of girls so they understand and concentrate on the importance of hard skills: their finances, careers, politics. But not because they must all become CEOs. Because we want them to have access to the networks and investment that allow them to live out their purpose. Unless they understand how economics works, they cannot make decisions about how to ensure the world becomes more equal. The politics of economics needs to be linked to the idea of a purpose-driven world.

Jude Kelly CBE,

founder of the WOW (Women of the World) Foundation.

Data drawn from nationally representative sample of 690 girls aged 14–18, in response to question ‘Which, if any, of the following do you want school to prepare you for?’

The girls we spoke to told us that they aspire to a type of leadership where measures of success are multidimensional and not necessarily reliant on traditional measures such as salary, prestige or power. Interviewees told us that girls at school today do not necessarily see those currently in positions of power as role models, citing values including honesty, integrity and resilience as qualities they believe leaders should possess.

Quote from the GDST Futures Report

Strong leadership is about human connection and understanding what drives individuals and communities to strive together with purpose. It’s no surprise that our young people will look to those with whom they already have established relationships to learn about leadership and seek to mimic what they see. It’s a real responsibility, then, that those of us who build relationships with young people are authentic in our leadership, modelling compassionate, values-based authority whenever we can.

Finally, how do we know which careers our own students here at WHS are interested in? We conducted a Dream Jobs survey to better understand the roles they would explore if the opportunities were limitless, as well as those not being considered, so that we can provide them with food for thought.

WIMBLEDON HIGH SCHOOL FUTURES

Watch this space for updates on the outcome of our survey and progress on all aspects of the Futures Programme…

Fionnuala Kennedy, Head, Wimbledon High School