.png)
Year 9 students on the Rising Futures programme from The Barclay School and Barnwell School attended their World of Work day at Barclays Bank Head Offices on Friday 7th December.
The students started the day in true commuter fashion, arriving early at Stevenage station to catch the jam packed train to London Bridge. This was followed by a busy traverse through London Bridge station in order to access the underground and continue our journey to Canary Wharf.
Despite the rain, we all enjoyed taking in the sights and sounds of Canary Wharf as we made our way from the tube station to Barclays Bank HQ. We were greeted by our host, Carissa, in the foyer of the bank and we were also joined by students from St Angela’s School. Barclays were accommodating three groups of students from the Rising Futures programme and this enabled us to mix in together and make new friends for the day.
Once we were settled in our conference room, we heard from a number of Barclays employees about their career backgrounds and work within the company. It was interesting to hear about the apprenticeship opportunities available to young people, as well as learn about the variety of roles available to you within a global corporate bank. This certainly helped dispelled any fears that you had to be a mathematical whizz to work in banking!
The afternoon challenge was the Barclays Bank Dragons Den competition. The students were split in to small working groups and tasked with creating a technological solution or app to a social issue that they felt passionately about. This ranged from trying to tackle homelessness to better mental health support for young people. Each group worked together to design their app by creating a name, logo and process for their idea. This culminated in a presentation in front of the “Dragons” to decide the overall winner!
Over the course of the day, the students not only learnt more about career paths within a global organisation, they also had the opportunity to develop their communication, team work and presentation skills.
Thank you to Carrisa and her colleagues for hosting a great day for our Rising Futures students!
Our World of Work days are an integral part of our Yes Futures programmes.
To find out more about the programmes and how we can support your students, please contact Sophie Bartlett: sophie@yesfutures.org
If you are a business that would like to hear more about how to get involved in our World of Work opportunities please contact info@yesfutures.org