Over 1,000 students broaden their horizons thanks to city's biggest school careers fair

Assistant headteacher Simon Wareham at what Southmoor Academy believe to be the city's biggest school careers fair.

Transcript

00:00 Okay, can you just give me an overview of what today's event is all about and how important

00:19 it is for the students?

00:21 Today's event is our annual careers fair that we host every year and for the second year

00:24 running we've hosted it off-site at, thanks to the generosity of Sunderland University,

00:28 giving us use of their sports hall for the day and we've invited lots of employers, we've

00:33 invited higher education, further education providers, training providers and apprenticeship

00:38 providers to come and speak to our students about options for the future, let them explore

00:43 what they can do in the future, what pathways they can go down, both education and employment

00:49 and really get a flavour of what they're learning in school and how they can then use that in

00:53 the future for their future plans.

00:54 How many organisations have you got here today then?

00:57 We've got up to 70 organisations here today and as I said they come from all different

01:01 sectors from education but also from the world of work as well.

01:05 I know youngsters to some degree should keep their options open but how important is it

01:09 at this age that they at least start to form some idea of what they would like to do?

01:14 We think it's really important that at this age they start to form some kind of idea about

01:17 what they want to do, it's not necessarily about knowing exactly what they want to do

01:20 in the future but it's about looking at their interests, looking at their skills and putting

01:24 them on some kind of pathway so that they've got a direction to go in for the future.

01:29 They might change that pathway, they might change that route but it's just getting them

01:32 on some kind of pathway that is appropriate and suitable for them for the future is really

01:36 important and we believe that at Southmore we start that at a really early age and make

01:40 sure that all of our students have the possibilities to start forming those directions and those

01:45 opinions about what they want to do.