Robyn’s Mum came in to class to tell us all about being a GP. We got to try out some of her equipment including the puffer which you blow into if you have asthma, the blood pressure test to see what your blood pressure is and the medicine books that tell you how much medicine you should take if you are unwell.

Mr Johnstone came into class to tell us all about his time in the Armed Forces.  He has had lots of interesting, varied, demanding and quite frightening jobs in the Army.  He told us that you begin with Basic Training of 14 weeks which is very intense and then begin your Trade Training which was for Mr Johnstone an Ammunition Technician which involved working with explosives and defusing bombs,    He has worked in many different places such as Belfast, Bosnia, Cyprus and Iraq.  Mr Johnstone also trained using parachutes and did bomb disposal work on oil rigs and ships.   He did tell us that there are lots of sports you can play representing the army.  He let us see special events reported in newspapers and of course his superb medal collection.  We also found out that there are some hard times too in the army as you are away from your family for long periods of time and that some friends do not return home.

Benjamin thought that it was interesting the stories behind the medals.  Frazer could not believe that a lady found in a charity shop a hand grenade and needed to call the bomb disposal squad.   Lewis found it funny that an officer blew up a building with explosives by mistake.   Mrs Scott was amazed at the weapon knowledge of the children in Primary 5.

Chris works in a Creative Agency, Whitespace in Edinburgh.  He told us that his agency works with adverts, logos, videos, games and websites.   Lots of different skills are needed eg designing, art, writing, writing scripts, films, editing, animation, CGI and websites.  Teams of people within the agency work with clients producing what is required.

Every day is different.

Chris showed us how Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality can be used in his work.

We looked at a brilliant advert for Shackleton’s Whisky which was filmed in Finland (Hoth, Star Wars).  Chris explained the 25 second advert and how the ‘hero shot’ was created.

Chris took us through the process of the creation of the front page for  Edinburgh Fringe, Step Into the Unknown.  Starting with a Mood Board, the changes, then working on quality and motion and then CGI.

We looked at the hidden meanings in Logos and this was great fun trying to find the message.  Chris told us about the importance and impact of colours and typography.

Chris has challenged us to create a Personal Brand with a Logo using colour and font to represent ourselves.  We will post these on completion.

Alfie C, William M, Lewis, Alfie J, Aimee, Tara, Oliver R, Oliver J, Daniel, Charlie, George, Benjamin, Thomas, Callum and Frazer really would like to do this job when they are older.

Charlie thought that the games were fun and it was interesting trying to find the special meaning hidden within the logos.

Dr Jarvis came to speak to us about her job as a lecturer in Animal Science at the Royal Dick Vet College in Edinburgh University. We learnt a lot about the future of farming as technology develops and how this will support the Sustainable Development Goal of Zero Hunger. We looked at pictures relating to Zero Hunger and how these impacted other Sustainable Development Goals. All of this related back to her job because to get food, we need animals to be healthy.

Mrs Ackerman came in to speak about her job at Deloitte and how the company is looking at careers of the future. We liked hearing about what her company does and the specific elements of her job. We learnt how robots are taking over jobs or supporting jobs and how quickly these advances in technology are happening. We looked a trump cards of different careers and saw the skills involved in different jobs and whether the amount of people doing this job has increased or decreased in the last 18 years. It linked very well our work on careers of the future this week.

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We had Mr Disley come in to speak to us about his job as a Professional Lego Builder! We found out the things that interested us when we were 4 or 5 years old could all be jobs when we are adults.

Mr Disley used to work with sound and had us do some experiments in the class with our hearing. Did you know you can hear the sound waves bounce off of our walls?

Now Mr Disley builds models of buildings with Lego. Some of his work is on display at the National Museum of Scotland.

Thank you for visiting us!

Our final visitor this week was Izzy’s dad. He came to talk to us about his experience of setting up a business. We learned that businesses can often start from an idea, passion or something you are good at. He also mentioned that you don’t always have to be super smart at school because sometimes, the best ideas come from people who think ‘out of the box’ and who do things slightly differently.

We were given an exciting challenge of pitching an idea for a new business and given money to invest in a business we felt would profitable.

We loved the idea of making money and pitching our ideas in a creative way!

Islay’s mum came in today to speak to us about her role as a communications manager for the company, InfraCo Africa.  The company helps countries in Africa build a more stable, accessible and sustainable infrastructure.  Her job requires many different skills and is something that she is very passionate about.

We have recently been learning about the Sustainable Development Goals  and it was interesting to hear about all the fascinating projects that are happening to help support counties achieve each target before 2030.

Maisie’s mum visited us today to talk about her role as a paramedic in the Scottish Ambulance Service. It was great to hear about what her job involves, the skills needed to do the job well and the qualifications to become a paramedic. We heard about her experiences in London and Edinburgh and the other people who work for the Scottish Ambulance Service behind the scenes. We also enjoyed asking about scary, funny and happy stories from her job. We found it really interesting to look inside the ambulance and got very excited by the siren and bullhorn.

We’ve been connecting our learning about sustainability with careers week by thinking about the sustainable skills that we use in our lives now, and might need to use in future careers. We have designed careers of the future and considered the transferable skills we would need for these jobs. We came up with flying car mechanics, virtual teachers, interactive VR footballers, space tour guides and much more! We discussed how our creativity and problem solving skills will help us deal with problems in future but that we need resilience to help us when things don’t go right. We are looking forward to discussing more about this with Mrs Ackerman who visits us on Friday.