Career Awareness in Key Stage 2/3

Aim: The purpose of the Life-Track game is to help pupils become more aware of the
choices and options which lie ahead in the future. To help them understand how
people make decisions and the ways in which they are influenced by others. To
understand that lives often unfold in unexpected directions requiring people to make
decisions and take responsibility for their lives.

Materials. For each group of about six pupils, you will need one copy of the A3
Life-Track poster and one pack of Life-Track cards. For the follow up activity, each
pupil should have a copy of the Life-Track questionnaire.

Preparation. Print the two A4 halves of the Life-Track poster and join them together.
Print out and separate the 36 Life-Track cards. To extend the life of the material, all
items could be printed or mounted on card.

Procedure. Ask each group to create an imaginary character. It can be a man or a

woman and they can give the person a name, an age and an occupation. Then,
members of the group take turns at picking a card from the pile and reading it to the
rest of the group. Working together, the team decides where that event might occur
around the Life-Track path for the character they have created.

For example, they might decide that ‘I passed my driving test’ occurred about the age
of 18 and the card is placed outside the track by the number 18.
The remaining cards are discussed and placed in a similar manner around the board.
and the cards from some events will overlap each other.

Review

Ask the group to select what they think are the key events in that person’s life.

Of those events, ! which would be the person’s own choice,

! which would be a shared choice,
! which would be made mainly by someone else?

Select an event and ask them to identify the things that might influence the person’s
decision.

If the group has selected a man for the character, ask them if the life track for a
woman would be different, and vice versa.

Life-Track questionnaire

Pupils are asked to interview an adult with the help of the Life Track Questionnaire.
This could be a follow up activity or as a preparation for the Life-Track game. The
person could be a family friend, a member of the school staff, a school governor or
someone in the public eye. This questionnaire focuses on the way people’s careers
unfold. In carrying out this kind of survey, encourage the pupils to take notes and to
ask open rather than closed questions which usually result in a brief ‘Yes’ or ‘No’
answer. Use Kipling’s ‘six honest serving men’ as a model for this.

I keep six honest serving-men

(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.

Review

With the help of the completed surveys, ask the pupils to discuss the following issues:

Was there a difference between the work people wanted and the work they found
when they left school or college?
How helpful to their careers were other people?

What reasons did they give for changing their jobs?

Were there any unusual or surprising career changes?

How has being at work changed their lives?

How did they cope with unemployment?

What kind of advice would they now give themselves?

Summary

For some people, going to work is the best part of their lives. Even when people win
large sums of money, many of them still feel a need to keep working. Why do you
think this is so?

They seek companionship

They can occupy their time meaningfully
They can make a contribution to the community
Their day is structured
They may find what they do interesting or challenging

Unfortunately, many people feel overworked or bored by their jobs. But whether they
reward or exploit people, jobs are important and the ones you do will affect your lives
in many ways:
-
- whether you spend much of your working life employed or unemployed
- whether you think of yourself as a success or a failure
- whether you will enjoy or dislike going to work
- the sort of people you will meet and mix with
- the number of times you will retrain for something new
- your health
- the way other people judge you
- the amount of spare time you have
- whether you will he hard up, comfortable, or wealthy
- whether you will have time to fill or time to kill

T Crowley Dec 2009