Primary 7 pupils travelled to the Stranraer Campus of Dumfries & Galloway College this morning, as part of Scottish Careers Week. The event was organised by Skills Development Scotland and we were joined by Castle Kennedy, Glenluce and Sheuchan Primaries. After an introduction from Kathryn and Lucy (SDS), we had 3 activities that we worked our way around throughout the morning.

The first activity was learning where the Careers Advisers are located at Stranraer Academy and what their role is. We then played a ‘would you rather…?’ game considering different aspect of various jobs, e.g. would you rather have a job that involved people or animals? We then split into 3 small groups and were given items to look at and had to list any job linked to those items – the careers advisers were impressed that 1 group got over 20 jobs and said that was the most that any school had thought of! Finally, we looked at the My World of Work website and learned about the job profiles sections which helps us to learn about different career options.

Next, we were given a tour of the college. We explored the various college courses that are on offer, including childcare, cookery, carpentry and construction, mechanic, hairdressing and beauty.

Finally, we went into the Skills Development Scotland office in the college. We worked in teams to complete a problem solving challenge – we had to imagine we were stuck on a deserted island surrounded by sharks. There were 5 people on the island with us – a scientist, bodybuilder, banker, doctor and pensioner. The rowing boat that we had could only hold us and 3 others so we had to decide which 3 people we’d take on the boat with us. We used lots of skills throughout this challenge – communicating, listening, compromising, team work and problem solving.

To finish off the morning, we all gathered together and participated in a little competition to win a £10 Greggs voucher – we had 1 questions to answer regarding the careers management skills we had learned about and all slips were put into a box and the winner drawn. Unfortunately, our schools didn’t win, but we had a brilliant morning learning all about the various jobs and careers on offer to us, what options exist locally and how to get advice.