National Careers Week in year 6

Need inspiration for National Careers Week? Emily Weston shares creative ways to help Year 6 pupils explore careers and think about their futures.

Two girls wearing safety goggles work on a robotic arm in a lab setting, guided by a woman in a white coat.

Experienced primary and secondary teacher Emily Weston explains how to inspire pupils this National Careers Week by broadening horizons and exploring job options.

When you ask your class what they want to be when they grow up, what do they say? YouTuber? Footballer? Tik Tok Star?

I know when I ask this question there is often a real lack of variety of answers I’m given and often they involve being rich or famous. I spend a lot of time thinking about why this is - is it because they’re all only motivated by money and fame? However, when I start speaking to the students more in-depth, I soon realise that this often isn’t the motivator; many of them simply choose jobs they’re most familiar with, or that utilise what they see as their own skills. If a child isn’t exposed to jobs beyond that of their family or what they see online, how can they know what options are available, let alone start to explore them?

Careers is a topic that secondary schools are required to include as part of their curriculum, but is often not explicitly taught in primary schools. Whilst it may feel early to start ‘teaching’ them to choose a career, it is never too early to show them the wide variety of options that are out there to spark their enthusiasm and imagination.

Lockdown activities

It was actually during the Covid lockdown that I was struck by inspiration. I wanted to create some meaningful activities for my year 6 class to take part in during the summer term, given that they were missing out on so many usual rites of passage. This led to me creating a ‘Careers Week’ resource pack. I wanted to encapsulate as many different careers as possible, but to ensure I worked alongside people within the roles in order to make sure they were authentic. They needed to give a genuine insight into the job and allow the opportunity for children to become excited to explore them further.

Each role had a slide, created in collaboration with the person within the career, and matched with an activity. Often, these also had some ties to the national curriculum and consolidated their previous learning. For example:

A dentist - activity: looking at what each tooth is called, and how we can best look after them.
A plumber - activity: choosing which pipes connect properly to supply water.
An architect - activity: using CAD to design the layout of a shop interior.
A pilot - activity: looking at miles flown on a journey.

Developing the week

The most successful ‘Careers Week’ I held was when I utilised the parents at the school. Every morning and afternoon, a parent would come into our class and share a presentation about their role. The children were so excited to discover careers they’d never heard of and test out some new skills with an activity based on what they had just learned. It was so successful, in fact, that we ended up running it for an extra two days to accommodate all the offers for talks we had!

There is often a wealth of knowledge and experience among the families of the students - not only in the class but the school - as well as of the staff. There will also be a range of local companies that are also willing to get involved; there could even be the opportunity to go one step further and run a trip that brings a job to life!

When I originally created the resources, I was completely ignorant of National Careers Week, which runs in March. Since learning about NCW, I’ve discovered that these are a fantastic set of resources to use within the classroom to enhance careers provision.

What is Careers Week?

National Careers Week is a one-week celebration of careers to ‘help and support young people to develop awareness and excitement for future pathways’. It has an incredible amount of resources which academic institutions can use to help students learn more about the world of work and the wealth of different options available for them when they enter the world of work.

National Careers Week is a great chance to show pupils the wide range of jobs beyond what they already know. Even small steps, like guest talks or hands-on activities, can spark big ideas and inspire them to dream beyond the familiar.