Career opportunities

May 7 2008 by Sharon Liptrott, Dumfries Standard Wednesday

LOCHSIDE Primary School pupils are preparing for the future after their successful first careers week.

All classes from P1 to P7 took part in the new endeavour for the school to find out about different careers available in the local area.

And the school now hopes to make careers week an annual event.

Depute headteacher Mrs Louisa Gamble said: “The staff feel that it is vital that children are prepared for their future working lives and the aim of careers week was to inspire our children at an earlier age and encourage them to have ambitions.

“The school was very lucky in gaining the support of many local companies and business people. A stream of visitors included the MP Russell Brown and councillor Ronnie Nicholson and both agreed they had never had such in-depth interviews!”

Careers Scotland supported the school by running activities teaching the pupils how skills such as co-operation and teamwork are essential to many careers.

“The pupils learned so much about how they can do any job they want, if they have the right skills and attitude,” added Mrs Gamble. “We are so grateful to all the people who gave up their valuable time to support us during careers week. All the pupils in the school enjoyed themselves and hopefully we have inspired some of them for the future.”

Will Clark, ICT development officer, worked with the upper classes to explore different jobs within the ICT sector, including animation and web-page design.

Representatives from Connaught Partnerships Ltd. who are helping to refurbish homes in the Lochside area visited P7 to talk about different jobs in the construction industry including site management, health and safety, and customer service.

They set the pupils a challenge to design a job advert to show what qualities and personality are needed for successful careers. They also generously donated prizes in support of careers week.

Fiona Stewart, senior customer service manager for Connaught, said: “I think that careers week is a super idea. So many children have no idea about what to do when they leave school. Starting careers education this early means that the pupils realise what skills and qualities they need to develop for the future.”

As part of an insight into the service industry, P5/6s visited the Cairndale Hotel in Dumfries and looked at everything from serving in the restaurant to preparing food.

Careers in horticulture appealed to P3/4 class who enjoyed a talk from Alistair Bertram of Gardenwise who also took them on a tour of the garden centre.

Following the green fingers theme, P3/4 enjoyed a visit from a local farmer and were thrilled when the Barony College brought a tractor to school.

P4’s topic of “our community” took them to tour Dumfries Fire Station where they learned about the valuable work that Dumfries and Galloway Fire and Rescue Service provides.

They looked at the control room, found out about the dangers of hoax calls and tried on the different equipment.

One of the P4 pupils, Mackenzie Mackay, said: “I didn’t think we would actually watch a real call-out. I felt very anxious watching them go out, and thought they were really brave.”

The infant department looked at “people who help us” and were visited by several people including the community wardens, school nurses and the community police.

Tom Henry, countryside ranger for Nithsdale, shared information on his environmental role and showed them that close observation skills are necessary as well as the ability to be quiet and not scare away the animals.