Careers


Careers education for primary pupils


It is becoming more common for primary schools to focus on pupils’ career aspirations and to begin preparing them for the world of work. Suzanne O’Connell reports


their own personal coach and spend at least four hours a week with employers who work closely with the school. By 16 this has increased to two days a week. The curriculum is different too. One of the purposes of the


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studio school is not only to increase pupils’ employability but their engagement in education. The CREATE framework (Communication, Relating to others, Enterprise, Applied skills, Thinking skills and Emotional Intelligence) emphasises life-skills and is taught through multi-disciplinary projects. These projects are work-linked, practical and lead to a tangible outcome. Helen Mason, project director of the Southampton Studio School, is


aware of the similarities of their curriculum to that of primary schools. She describes one of their projects which involves students planning the opening of a new haulage depot: “It covers core subjects such as maths and English but also geography and IT. It’s not like the usual secondary school single subject silo.” Studio schools enable young people to recognise the work opportunities that there are in their locality. With the direct involvement of local employers and a curriculum founded in work-based projects, they put learning firmly in its context. But at 14-years-old is it already too late for some of these young people? New research suggests that aspirations at seven can have an impact on the way in which pupils develop.


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rom 9am to 5pm, five days a week and without fixed term dates or a long summer holiday, studio schools are introducing 14-year-olds to the timetable of the workplace. Students have


I want to be… The research report,Do Primary School Children’s Career Aspirations Matter? (Flouri et al) suggests that there is a link between family poverty, career aspirations, and emotional and behavioural problems. Although there is a clear association between these factors, there is


also great variability in outcomes. Some children show more resilience than others and it was this and its potential link to aspiration that the researchers studied. Children were asked to write down what they would like to be when


they grew up. Their responses were coded for status, from managers and senior officials to elementary occupations. Poverty was determined by identifying families whose income was 60 per cent or below that of the UK national median household. Emotional and behavioural problems were measured using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (Goodman, 1997). Using this data, the researchers found that those children living in families below the poverty line who had higher careers aspirations were less likely to have behavioural problems. The lack of early aspirations might not be working in isolation. The


report suggests that there might be a cluster of variables that accompany it. Children without aspiration might also carry a sense of hopelessness or low self-belief that contributes to their behaviour. The research team recognises that there is scope here for further investigation. Not all the studies on this subject have come to the same conclusions as Professor Flouri and her team. Some researchers have found that


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