As part of Health Education England’s #StepintotheNHS competition, Sandon School in Chelmsford, Essex, ran a Career Footsteps event that focused on careers in the health sector. The #stepintotheNHS competition is running to help raise awareness of the 350 roles that a career in the NHS has to offer.
This event brought together Year 9 students to encourage them to think about the range of careers in the health sector they can pursue. As part of the #stepintotheNHS competition students researched the variety of jobs in the health sector and then design a poster to advertise their chosen career. Other activities included mock interviews and presentations around the volunteers’ careers.
Volunteers included the following:
Helen Lloyd-Rainbow, Ford Motor Company Ltd
Ian Chiverton, Home Office
Andrea Purser, DWP
Paris Bartholomew
Uruemu Okun, Capgemini
Rebecca Bruce, Mercer
Caroline O’Leary, QuintilesIMS
Paul Deemer, NHS Employers
Cheryl Nevin, NHS – Barts Health NHS Trust
Andrew Nwosu, NHS England
Dirk Pilat, NHS
Katherine Huband, Royal Brompton and Harefield NHS Trust
Darren Aldrich, Health Education England
A year 9 student said:
“The day was incredibly useful and informative. It thoroughly helped with my GCSE choices and what job I would like to do.”
Volunteers Rebecca and Sheila from Mercer said:
“I found it inspiring, engaging and interactive/ (the day) integrated business skills into a school environment, setting them (the students) up for the future/ the event installed business ethics into a school environment.”
Andrea Purser, from the Department for Work and Pensions, commented:
“It has been so inspiring how engaged and well they (the students) can research and use teamwork skills to perform a presentation in such a short space of time.”