This article was written by a student in year 11.

We began with an introduction telling us what the day was about before going off to attend 5 workshops.These helped us understand how businesses were run, the strategies used to keep a business sustainable, and how important diversity is, in terms of the different people that are in a business and what they have to offer. There was also a workshop called ‘People Like Me’ where we found out our strongest attributes and the types of jobs that are associated with these attributes.

In the third workshop we explored the different ways that businesses are structured, before learning about how firms manage their finances -  something that will also help us in the future when we start to handle our own money! Finally, we looked at the different pathways that we can take after we complete our GCSEs, other than simply studying A Levels and then going to university. These workshops were helpful because we had all learnt something from them that we would be able to use as we move forward in our education.

Following the workshops, we had a CV and interview review, in which we updated our CVs based on what we had taken away from the workshops, and some of the people from ‘Learning to Work’ had a look at our documentation and gave us some useful feedback. The day was wrapped up after lunch with a Q&A Panel, where 11 people came in and we were able to ask them questions regarding their jobs, like the challenges they faced. This was beneficial to us because we learnt about the different things that people had to do in order to reach the positions that they are in today.

In conclusion, this focus day was very useful for us because we learnt many skills and gained many pieces of advice which will be helpful to us in the future. We would like to thank ‘Learning to Work’ for coming in and delivering these sessions to us. We would also like to thank Mrs Toor who has organised the event for us.