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Kognoggs:

A careerED podcast

On this page you will find links to the Youtube versions of the podcast. Listening to the podcast on Youtube allows you to have subtitles if that helps. I have also downloaded the transcript and made that available too. The transcript is automatically generated by Youtube, so errors are on them!

00:02
hello
00:03
and welcome you’re listening to cognogs
00:06
a career ed podcast where each fortnight
00:08
i give a guest free professional career
00:10
coaching whether they like it or not
00:13
and along the way we share our own
00:14
career stories engage with the politics
00:16
and pedagogy of career education
00:19

and explore one little corner of the

00:21
ever-changing world of work
00:23
my name is rob cooper i’m a careers
00:26
leader and a registered career
00:27
development professional
00:29
i have an interest in careers education
00:31
and if you’re trying to be an adult in
00:33
this liquid world
00:34
so do you
00:40
episode one small fierce
00:44
determined this week i’m talking to
00:47
shelley cousins
00:48
shelley has recently been made head of
00:50
careers and cultural capital at her
00:52
school in somerset
00:54
to put this interview into context
00:56
shelly and i had never met before
00:58
and this was my first interview for the
01:00
show as it turns out
01:02
i couldn’t have asked for a better guest
01:03
to start out with she was eager to talk
01:06
and bursting with ideas
01:10
hi nice to meet you nice to meet you too
01:14
how are you doing i’m good i’ve just
01:16
been writing reports
01:18
ah that time of year well that lovely
01:20
time of year which is quite difficult
01:22
when you’ve only talked them for half a
01:23
year
01:24
yeah quite tricky quite tricky and a
01:27
little bit sad as well isn’t it
01:29
because yeah it is a bit um there are
01:32
some students that
01:33
were so close to being amazing yeah and
01:36
they kind of turned it around you think
01:38
i was really sad that they didn’t
01:40
i don’t have that extra time to show me
01:42
just how amazing they could really be
01:45
yeah yeah very strange times and
01:48
and kind of how does lockdown suit you
01:52
how do what what’s it like for you
01:55
a lot of times quite hard in all
01:56
fairness because we’ve got three
01:58
children
01:59
yeah um who are 14 8
02:02
and 3. yeah and the age gap never seemed
02:06
to be
02:06
a big thing until lockdown yeah
02:10
because you could do things that kind of
02:11
entertained all of them but now it’s
02:13
really hard
02:14
because working with one is different to
02:16
working with another
02:18
and then the three-year-old wants to
02:20
destroy the place
02:21
[Laughter]
02:24
so i’m really glad that he’s doing this
02:26
child minded just for like three hours a
02:28
couple of times a week
02:29
just so that i can get i see that um
02:33
an article on tests today about oh all
02:35
these parents are not engaging with
02:37
their children’s learning
02:38
yeah i’d like to engage an awful lot
02:40
more but actually
02:42
it’s not that easy is it not it’s not
02:44
and then i’ve got my head of department
02:46
who’s our
02:46
union rapid school as well saying well
02:48
if you’ve got the children at home
02:50
you’re not expected to do this that and
02:51
the other i’m like yeah but that’s
02:53
kind of not fair on the children that i
02:55
teach as well so
02:56
yeah it’s that difficulty of being i
02:59
think
03:00
i think you’re about to meet one of my
03:01
one of my kids
03:05
i banned mine yeah yeah well mine are
03:08
all adults i’ve got three kids as well
03:10
um but it’s my youngest birthday today
03:15
and my youngest is 19 which um
03:18
it just doesn’t doesn’t compute really i
03:21
don’t i don’t feel like i’m
03:23
anywhere old enough for that no i’m in
03:25
complete denial because our eldest is 15
03:27
this year
03:28
right now that can’t be a thing that i
03:31
don’t think i’m ready to have a 15 year
03:32
old and then
03:33
i think well september next year our
03:36
youngest is going to school and i’m
03:37
definitely not ready for that
03:38
i yeah he has to be a baby forever in my
03:42
head
03:42
so i am recording once it’s ready to go
03:46
out i will send you a copy
03:47
before it goes out just so you know i’m
03:50
not um kind of taking your words out of
03:52
context
03:52
the the plan is i’m going to follow some
03:56
kind of
03:57
loose career development kind of
03:59
framework
04:00
a couple of things that i do in terms of
04:02
the
04:04
what they call micro skills there will
04:06
be times where i leave quite a bit of a
04:08
pause after what you’ve
04:10
said and that’s that’s just a way of
04:13
getting you to talk a bit more
04:15
[Laughter]
04:17
um but but the trouble with the
04:20
technology
04:20
is that um unless i’m kind of waving my
04:23
hands frantically to show that the
04:25
connection is still live
04:26
um it can sometimes make people feel
04:29
like
04:30
hello are you still there have we
04:33
crashed
04:34
um so i don’t know how successful that
04:36
one will be
04:38
i might chip in occasionally just a
04:41
signal
04:42
i mean i’m guessing that in the podcast
04:44
there’ll only be me and you ever
04:45
listening
04:49
i didn’t even tell my husband until this
04:51
morning i was like i’m recording a
04:52
podcast today and he’s like wow that was
04:54
amazing so
04:56
i might i kind of chip in and signpost
04:58
to people
04:59
um kind of what i’m doing and why i’m
05:01
asking questions and things
05:03
so you happy what we’re doing yeah
05:05
you’re ready to get
05:06
kind of started yeah hear it
05:10
from a practitioner’s point of view
05:12
we’ve come to the end of
05:14
uh what we might call phase one uh where
05:16
we’ve
05:17
simply tried to welcome the individual
05:19
and establish some effective
05:20
communication
05:22
um i’ve tried to use some rapport to
05:25
build trust
05:26
shelley is uh very warm and very open
05:29
and
05:29
a very easy person to communicate with
05:33
so there’s no need to to press this
05:36
section any further we’re about five
05:38
minutes in
05:39
uh i’ve already sent shelly as i do with
05:42
all my guests
05:43
some information about what i’m going to
05:45
do with the podcast
05:47
giving them some rights to have a final
05:50
listen to the
05:51
to the final edit um so in terms of
05:53
confidentiality
05:55
and the ethics of what we’re doing we’re
05:58
in a good space now to
05:59
move on so next stage of this
06:02
is just inviting you to
06:06
tell your story um now
06:09
you know start where you feel
06:11
comfortable but
06:12
i think for me a starting point would be
06:15
um
06:15
i put out this this random tweet saying
06:18
i’ve got an idea for a podcast
06:20
and i’ve never met you i’ve never heard
06:22
well you i think you followed me
06:23
previously
06:24
that’s probably how i ended up on your
06:26
feed um
06:27
and you stuck your hand up and said yes
06:30
yeah
06:31
so what what was going on there what
06:33
what what was the motivation
06:36
because twitter is a completely new
06:38
thing for me
06:39
um i had an account years ago and i
06:42
couldn’t understand twitter
06:43
didn’t understand what it was all about
06:45
it wasn’t facebook so i didn’t
06:47
quite get it and i thought right okay
06:49
it’s locked down
06:51
and there is apparently this world out
06:53
there of resources and amazing people
06:56
who want to share things and want to
06:58
interact and
07:00
cpd hasn’t been a thing for me for a
07:02
long time
07:04
because primarily of school funding
07:08
paying for teachers to go on courses
07:11
isn’t a thing
07:12
um especially because then there are
07:14
cover implications
07:16
and so we’ve had in-house cpd for an
07:19
awfully long time but no opportunity
07:23
really to interact with other people and
07:25
share resources
07:27
and so i logged onto twitter and i set
07:30
up a new account
07:31
and what three months later i’ve got
07:34
nearly a thousand followers
07:35
and i have learnt so much and i have met
07:38
so many amazing people
07:41
i’ve shared resources and my confidence
07:43
within myself
07:44
as a professional is growing massively
07:47
and
07:47
that it’s just a fantastic opportunity
07:50
you shouldn’t pass up as a professional
07:52
so i saw it and i thought yeah actually
07:55
i’ve just become a head of careers and
07:57
cultural capital
07:58
at my school and i thought yeah i
08:02
want to interact with other people who
08:03
are like-minded
08:05
and have ideas about how to promote
08:08
careers within schools and so i thought
08:10
yeah let’s do it
08:12
so you mentioned there you’ve recently
08:14
become head of
08:15
careers and cultural capital um
08:18
i hope we get a chance to talk about
08:20
that that the cultural capital yeah
08:22
because i think cultural capital bit is
08:25
controversial i think in the current
08:27
climate that
08:28
that’s that’s well worth unpicking um
08:31
so so we might get there in a bit um
08:34
but head of careers you’re an english
08:36
teacher yes
08:37
yes i am and you’re still yeah i
08:39
qualified in 2008.
08:42
okay yeah so you’re still an english
08:45
teacher
08:46
yes okay yeah i’ll still be there uh
08:49
reduced
08:50
timetable so they’re pulling me out of
08:52
english a little bit more i think
08:54
i’ve got something like 10 ppa slots now
08:56
yeah
08:57
and region time with my form group
09:01
uh twice a week so that i’ve got that
09:03
extra time to
09:05
to do the the role okay so what
09:09
how did that role come about
09:12
um we have a deputy head who’s very busy
09:16
and was a deputy head in charge of
09:19
teaching and learning
09:20
from the point of view that he was it
09:23
was a temporary post
09:24
they made it permanent and the advert
09:27
came out and
09:27
i thought what a fantastic opportunity
09:31
what a fantastic way to have that extra
09:34
level of impact teaching english
09:36
is a massive thing anyway for all
09:39
students because
09:40
i’m going to say i’m an english teacher
09:42
let’s be controversial if you haven’t
09:43
got english
09:44
then the skills you need in every other
09:48
subject
09:50
regardless so english is a big one but
09:52
for me
09:53
it was the opportunity to use the skills
09:55
i’ve gathered over the last few years to
09:57
do something
09:59
a little bit different and to encourage
10:02
people and the cultural capital
10:04
bit having done
10:07
sociology and psychology for a level
10:09
yeah i
10:10
actually knew what cultural capital was
10:13
in our department group chat people like
10:15
what’s cultural capital what is that
10:17
and having spoken to other members of
10:18
staff a lot of people didn’t know what
10:20
it actually meant
10:22
and they were quite put off by by the
10:24
idea because they didn’t know
10:26
there has been a suggestion have i got a
10:28
real job or have i just got
10:29
a job with a made-up title
10:33
not really reassuring but i just think
10:36
from a careers point of view
10:38
i actually started off when i decided i
10:41
wanted to be a teacher i needed
10:42
experience
10:43
and before i could apply the
10:46
universities were saying right
10:47
this is great but you need some
10:48
classroom experience
10:50
so when i was doing the final year of my
10:53
degree
10:54
i joined the um
10:58
reaching higher reaching wider
10:59
partnership
11:01
um i think it’s changed its name
11:03
slightly but it’s in the welsh
11:05
universities predominantly
11:07
and i went into a local high school and
11:10
i started working with children
11:12
who had no background of higher or
11:15
further education within their
11:17
within their families and it was an
11:19
aspirational mentoring
11:21
program um i think what really struck me
11:24
is that there were some children
11:26
who genuinely all they aspired to in
11:29
life was to sit on the sofa every day
11:31
and watch jeremy kyle
11:32
and they were quite open about that and
11:34
i i felt quite sad
11:36
at that point because there is a whole
11:40
world out there waiting to be explored
11:43
and some of them just didn’t realize
11:45
their potential and didn’t realize what
11:46
they were capable of
11:48
so it’s always been really important to
11:50
me that people realize
11:52
what they can do with their
11:53
qualifications and where they can go and
11:55
now living in somerset
11:57
um i talked in bridgewater
12:00
i’ve taught in bridgewater for the last
12:02
seven years before i moved to my current
12:03
school
12:04
and some students genuinely believe
12:07
that life begins and ends
12:11
at junction 24 and junction 23 either
12:14
side of bridgewater
12:15
and they they are not aware of the
12:18
opportunities that there are out there
12:20
and for me i think it’s really important
12:22
that students realise that they
12:24
make the most of every opportunity and
12:26
they take the opportunities that are
12:28
available to them so
12:30
the opportunity to do this role in a new
12:33
school
12:34
who actually offer completely different
12:36
things to anything that i’ve
12:38
i’ve been to you know our school offers
12:40
agriculture
12:41
as a gcse first school i’ve ever worked
12:44
in
12:45
that offers that as a gcse but we look
12:47
at
12:49
what our demographic is and who our
12:51
students are and what their background
12:52
is
12:53
and actually a vast proportion of them
12:55
come from
12:56
the farming community with a farming
12:58
background so
12:59
capitalize on that and offer them
13:01
something that they can get a
13:03
qualification in
13:04
yeah totally and i think that’s really
13:07
important
13:08
because some some degrees are absolutely
13:12
fantastic but i got to the end of my
13:14
degree and realized very quickly
13:16
it was great i had a degree but it
13:18
didn’t qualify me to do anything yeah
13:20
and so having those transferable skills
13:23
i had to do a pgce to become a teacher
13:27
and sometimes it’s about tracking it
13:29
back nobody
13:30
ever sat down with me when i was at
13:32
school and said right okay well what
13:34
what do you want to do with this degree
13:36
if you do this this is what you’ll need
13:38
to do to enter the world of work
13:40
so it’s about preparing them for a
13:42
future
13:44
that they’re not too sure on at this
13:46
particular moment in time
13:48
so hopefully i’ll be able to do
13:50
something to make a difference to some
13:51
of them yeah
13:52
fab you you’re already sounding like a
13:55
careers lead
13:56
that’s that’s great yeah that’s great um
14:01
so why did you start off as an english
14:03
teacher
14:06
um i actually went to cardiff university
14:09
and did a degree in journalism film and
14:11
broadcasting
14:13
and the intention was always to be
14:16
a formula one journalist and in my head
14:20
i was going to travel the world
14:22
for you know 50 52 weeks of the year i
14:25
was going to have an apartment in monte
14:27
carlo
14:28
and i was going to be living the life
14:30
yeah
14:31
um only as as is the case with life
14:34
generally it throws you these curveballs
14:36
and uh towards the second year um of my
14:40
degree i fell pregnant right my first
14:42
daughter
14:43
she wasn’t planned she was a happy
14:46
accident and i wouldn’t change it for
14:47
the world but then i
14:48
realized that actually there was a
14:51
career that
14:52
at the time wasn’t going to be
14:54
accessible for me
14:56
because i had a young child to care for
14:58
so i thought um
14:59
what else am i good at what can i do and
15:02
i loved learning
15:04
absolutely adored being at school um
15:07
i didn’t adore college because of the
15:08
college i went to but learning was the
15:10
big thing
15:12
and so i thought okay i really enjoyed
15:14
school
15:15
and if i could help other people to
15:18
enjoy their learning as much as i did
15:20
yeah let’s do that and so i looked into
15:25
the opportunity to do my teacher
15:26
training um
15:29
i went back to university when shannon
15:31
was 10 months old
15:33
i finished the final year of my degree i
15:35
went straight into my pgc after and then
15:38
straight into a full-time english
15:39
teaching job the year after that
15:41
um so for any child that i teach
15:45
i wouldn’t even recommend having a child
15:47
so early in life because it’s tough and
15:49
it’s hard
15:50
but i think what i want children to know
15:52
is that anything is possible
15:54
yeah and people will put barriers in
15:56
front of you
15:58
my own mum even told me when i ended up
16:01
pregnant that i was never going to
16:02
finish my degree
16:04
i was never going to um i was never
16:08
going to move forward i’d become a baby
16:09
making machine
16:11
and actually for me it was like actually
16:13
i’m going to prove you wrong
16:15
because i have so much to give
16:18
i have this level of intelligence and
16:20
i’m determined and
16:22
i hope that my children see that
16:25
regardless of the background you come
16:27
from or the challenges that are put in
16:29
your way
16:30
if you want to succeed you can you might
16:32
have to work for it
16:34
but the opportunities are definitely
16:36
there yeah fantastic
16:38
um and a great example to those those
16:40
kinds of students
16:42
um you know what whatever life throws at
16:45
you it’s never a full stop
16:47
um you know that there are always
16:50
opportunities that come about
16:52
because of it so um you you didn’t end
16:55
up
16:55
um following formula one around the
16:57
world but you did end up doing something
16:59
else that was
17:00
um well for a lot of people more
17:02
important and and
17:04
and certainly of equal value um yeah
17:07
definitely are you still a petrol head
17:10
um yes although from the one just got a
17:14
little bit
17:14
too too predictable yeah um
17:18
i love it um my husband actually races
17:21
for the
17:21
royal navy raw marines yeah manager
17:25
so um petra head in a slightly different
17:28
way
17:29
um in that we do a lot of off-roading
17:31
yeah um
17:32
and i used to help out as a teenager at
17:34
the yamaha off-road experience as well
17:37
so i learned a bit about motorbikes
17:39
along the way
17:40
um so yeah just do a little bit of
17:43
everything
17:44
and something that’s a bit different but
17:46
um tractors are the big favorite in this
17:49
okay yeah it’s it’s it’s a little bit
17:53
diverse
17:53
you know one of those people that they
17:55
say oh you’re really interested in that
17:57
and yeah just try something different
18:00
yeah
18:01
so so does the uh the kind of interest
18:03
in motorsport is that a
18:05
a long-running family thing was did that
18:07
come through your parents
18:08
yeah um my grandad right
18:12
um actually was a a petrol head
18:15
from a very very young age and we
18:17
actually have a motorbike
18:18
accident to thank for the fact that we
18:20
are even in existence in our family okay
18:23
my nan was a nurse and after my granddad
18:26
had a particularly horrific
18:27
accident she nursed him um and
18:30
they fell in love with his history it’s
18:33
always been a
18:34
it’s always been a big thing and it’s
18:36
just in complete contrast to the
18:38
epic amounts of reading and things like
18:41
that that i do
18:42
this kind of the extremes there yeah it
18:44
is a real contrast
18:45
um and it’s interesting that you you
18:47
kind of mentioned the reading there
18:48
because i’ve got
18:49
lots of questions kind of forming in my
18:51
head and one of them was about
18:55
how do you place yourself in terms of
18:56
being an english teacher
18:59
um i always feel a little bit like a
19:03
fake
19:03
as an english because um
19:07
when i came to select my a levels i was
19:10
quite adamant that i didn’t want to do
19:12
literature
19:13
yeah and actually despite the fact i’ve
19:15
been an english teacher for a lot of
19:17
years now
19:18
my last literature qualification was for
19:20
gcse
19:22
i have no further qualification past
19:24
gcse
19:26
um i’ve got a level english language
19:29
employ me so they must see something um
19:32
and so yeah i did a level english
19:34
language and
19:35
when i was at university obviously there
19:37
was um
19:40
language was the the big thing with the
19:42
journalism and
19:43
then when i went into my third year they
19:47
were professional writing modules so
19:48
language is something that i’ve done a
19:49
lot of but literature
19:51
i’ve had to teach myself yeah i think
19:54
well maybe i am a bit of a fraud because
19:56
i
19:56
haven’t done this a level in in
19:58
literature that i think that i should do
20:00
yeah but i’ve always had
20:04
just the desire to do different things
20:06
by
20:07
when i first joined my previous school
20:10
um joined there in september 2012 and it
20:13
was on a temporary contract
20:15
and i desperately wanted this permanent
20:18
contract
20:19
and having a discussion with the head
20:21
teacher at the time
20:22
she’s like well what other subjects can
20:23
you teach
20:25
it’s like i’ve got a levels in history
20:29
and sociology and psychology
20:33
and she said oh psychology
20:36
we used to teach that my last school
20:38
okay
20:41
and a couple of months later the
20:44
contracts still haven’t been made
20:45
permanent
20:45
and i got an email from the deputy head
20:48
saying please can you come to see me at
20:49
the end of the day
20:50
sounds much horror in the office you’ve
20:53
done what have you done
20:55
and i i went into her office at the end
20:58
of the day and she said right i’m going
21:00
to ask you to do something now
21:03
um but before i ask you i just want to
21:06
make it clear there is no guarantee that
21:08
this course is running
21:09
there is no guarantee that this course
21:12
will have you
21:13
involved in it but
21:16
would you please make us a board for
21:20
psychology for our options evening later
21:23
in the week
21:23
so i had like two days
21:26
and i i just said yeah okay
21:30
and i literally had i didn’t know
21:33
anything about the syllabus
21:35
um i’d done it for a level but not gcse
21:38
this was a whole new thing so in two
21:40
days
21:41
i put together a board advertising gcse
21:45
psychology um
21:49
and that day the day of the options
21:52
evening
21:53
i had to leave school early because my
21:56
middle daughter had her one year
21:58
injections
22:00
and i got called to the head’s office
22:02
and again you have this moment of oh
22:03
no yeah what have i done and i kind of
22:06
got handed this envelope
22:08
and and she said oh you know
22:10
congratulations
22:12
and my friend who was also on a
22:13
temporary contract got given an envelope
22:15
like wow we’ve got permanent jobs that’s
22:17
that’s great i’m like right i really
22:19
need to go and say thanks for this but
22:20
i’ve got somewhere else to be
22:23
so as i’m running out to the car i open
22:25
my envelope and i look and it’s
22:27
it’s like oh my god i’m a head of
22:30
department
22:33
there was a letter saying you know
22:36
congratulations and now all of a sudden
22:38
i was head of a psychology department
22:40
so how did that happen
22:44
so by the age of 27 i was there parented
22:47
to two beautiful girls and a head of
22:51
department as well
22:52
and that was that in itself was a roller
22:55
coaster because the following year i
22:57
took on another
22:59
kind of like 53 students and then had to
23:02
take on a member of staff so the
23:03
opportunities are there so
23:05
from an english point of view
23:08
i’ve been digressing for quite some time
23:12
and doing different things so i’ve done
23:14
that um
23:15
i’ve taught drama yeah i’ve done quite a
23:18
bit of drama i think i might be going
23:20
back to drama
23:21
next year as well i have
23:24
done the pshc curriculum as
23:27
most teachers do as well but i’ve done
23:30
history i’ve done rs
23:34
um what else have i done the old bit of
23:38
geography
23:39
here and there so i just think it’s
23:42
really important as a teacher you can
23:44
diversify
23:45
yeah and you can do different things
23:47
you’re a real good example of
23:49
what they’re calling careers kind of
23:52
theory
23:53
happenstance happenstance you you kind
23:56
of represent
23:57
that entirely that you are clearly
24:00
always open to opportunities
24:03
and you you put yourself out there um
24:06
and
24:07
whether consciously or subconsciously
24:09
you are you are always
24:11
on the lookout for something there are
24:13
there aren’t many closed doors to europe
24:15
and there aren’t many things that you
24:16
wouldn’t consider um
24:20
the week that i got the careers job um
24:22
i’ve been called for two interviews that
24:24
week because i’ve gone for the head of
24:25
house position as well
24:27
yeah ahead of me we had a year position
24:28
in our school um
24:31
yeah there’s just so much more that i
24:32
want to do um and i love being a
24:35
classroom teacher
24:36
being a classroom teacher is amazing but
24:38
i just think there are so many different
24:40
opportunities out there so
24:41
why wouldn’t you take them why wouldn’t
24:43
you go for these opportunities
24:48
in this section shelly clearly feels
24:50
very comfortable talking to me
24:53
and the time that we spent in the first
24:54
five or so minutes
24:56
establishing that rapport has clearly
24:59
helped and she’s
25:00
given some quite personal accounts of
25:03
her
25:04
journey through life and her um her back
25:07
story i suppose is what we might call it
25:11
um in terms of micro skills you can see
25:15
from that section that uh i spend a lot
25:18
of the time
25:19
silent uh i did introduce that in the
25:22
opening
25:23
section to say that i i would leave her
25:25
lots of space for her to be able to talk
25:28
and clearly that was an effective
25:29
approach with her there are a couple of
25:31
occasions where i’ve
25:34
used some kind of pondering i wanted to
25:37
ask her some challenging questions but i
25:39
didn’t want them to come across as being
25:41
challenging
25:42
it wasn’t meant to be any kind of
25:44
interrogation
25:46
so i i’ve kind of posted my
25:50
um posted my questions as kind of
25:53
musings to draw her into that and
25:56
and that’s been quite effective in this
25:58
situation
25:59
one thing from a careers point of view
26:01
that i should point out i did refer to
26:03
the theory of happenstance to be clear i
26:06
should have said
26:07
the theory of planned happenstance
26:09
happenstance is the
26:11
kind of chaotic random events that
26:14
happen
26:15
uh whereas the theory and careers of
26:17
planned happenstance
26:19
which which shelley clearly represents
26:22
here
26:22
is that we can put ourselves into a
26:25
position
26:27
where we can increase our opportunities
26:29
of those at random events happening
26:32
and i suppose in simple terms we put
26:35
ourselves out there which shelley talks
26:38
about quite a lot in this section
26:40
in the next section we should be moving
26:43
on to
26:44
kind of agreeing a major topic that
26:46
we’re going to talk about in a little
26:47
bit more detail
26:49
and what you’ll find from the next
26:50
section is that
26:53
getting shelley to focus on one topic
26:57
is a little bit more of a challenge for
26:58
me
27:00
i’m hoping this next question is going
27:02
to lead us on to
27:04
um part three what is the difference
27:07
between careers education and
27:09
education um
27:13
i think careers education has to show
27:15
you
27:16
how you can use the skills that you’ve
27:18
learned in your formal education
27:20
to move further forward there has to be
27:22
that link
27:23
um i was that child that used to sit
27:26
there with my hand up
27:27
in my maths lessons probably for the
27:29
last two years of school going this is
27:31
great
27:31
when am i going to use it when i leave
27:33
school and i think that has to be
27:37
you have to see the purpose in what
27:39
you’re studying
27:40
it’s difficult in english sometimes when
27:42
they’ve got 15 poems that they need to
27:44
learn
27:45
and they need to know about the context
27:47
and the structure and the language
27:51
they’ll do it because they know that
27:52
they need to to pass the exam
27:54
but i think we need to have a much
27:56
clearer link on
27:58
why we’re doing what we’re doing um
28:02
it’s sad that education’s got to the
28:04
point where we’re not necessarily
28:06
teaching them about a subject we are
28:07
teaching them how to pass an exam
28:10
and that’s really sad because you need
28:12
to have those transferable skills and
28:14
you need to see the purpose in what
28:15
you’re doing
28:16
otherwise they lose interest and that’s
28:19
really sad so for me careers education
28:22
is that
28:23
that next step and that’s something that
28:25
i’m really keen to develop
28:26
this year we have guest speakers come in
28:30
we have some fantastic guest speakers
28:32
and they tell you all about the job but
28:34
the bit that i really want to
28:36
enhance is how do you get from here
28:39
to here how do you get to that what do
28:42
you actually have to do um
28:45
almost like having a checklist of if i
28:47
want to do this job
28:48
then these are the courses that could be
28:50
useful for me or these are the skills
28:52
or you know these are the hobbies i
28:54
could try
28:56
that would help bridge that gap so i see
28:58
careers as being a very
29:01
um skills-based and the transferring of
29:04
this skills
29:08
are you familiar with gatsby
29:11
and the compass tools and things like
29:12
that do you school
29:14
go through all that yeah compass tool is
29:17
something that i’ve got training on
29:18
later on today
29:19
yeah um and gatsby
29:22
yes you know for me gatsby had a
29:25
completely different
29:26
meaning actually that’s really weird
29:28
i’ve got over here
29:31
you got the great gut speak yeah yeah to
29:34
me
29:34
when i was first doing it i was like
29:37
well that’s not the same thing clearly
29:39
um there’s so much amazing stuff out
29:42
there online though
29:43
there are some wonderful schools that
29:44
are kind of sharing you know how they do
29:46
it how they implement it
29:48
and it was interesting reading and as
29:49
part of my presentation
29:51
um for my job interview i had to go
29:54
through
29:55
how i how i felt that the school was
29:59
kind of
29:59
meeting all of these gatsby benchmarks
30:02
and
30:03
um and kind of saying
30:06
what i would do to improve it as i went
30:08
through so gatsby obviously
30:09
underpins everything that we do yeah it
30:12
has to yeah
30:13
um i am really keen to
30:17
introduce the young enterprise scheme
30:21
um the stuff that they can do for gatsby
30:24
is absolutely fantastic and one of my
30:27
new jobs that i have to do so much i’ve
30:31
got to do
30:31
so much um so our pshce
30:35
curriculum yeah is is kind of
30:38
divided down and i’m now in charge of
30:41
the economic element of it as well
30:43
yeah that’s a bit scary
30:46
um so i’ve been asked to
30:50
to look at that curriculum as well and
30:51
look at what we can do what we can
30:53
introduce
30:54
could you know do we need to tweak some
30:55
of the lessons to make it engaging
30:58
and one thing that i’ve noticed on
30:59
twitter there have been a few questions
31:01
that have gone out lately
31:02
what do you wish that you learned at
31:04
school
31:06
that you went into the adult world not
31:08
knowing anything about and so many
31:10
people have said
31:12
managing finances yeah and so many
31:15
people have kind of
31:16
said about you know how mortgages work
31:19
i’m terrified of mortgages
31:21
i’d say to my husband okay that’s fine
31:24
um
31:26
but i again at school that wasn’t
31:28
something i ever did
31:30
and i think it’s really important as
31:33
part of being a grown-up
31:34
learning about financing banking
31:37
credit cards loans or it’s an absolute
31:40
minefield and i think the country is
31:42
getting itself into such a mess because
31:43
people just
31:44
aren’t educated on it and so it comes
31:47
back to the idea of skills again as well
31:49
from a careers point of view
31:51
you know if you’re wanting to set up
31:53
your own business you need to know how
31:54
to manage your finances as well
31:57
and i have some of them are like do you
31:59
really think
32:00
that if you speak to an employer like
32:02
this
32:03
that you’re going to have a job for very
32:06
long
32:07
at which point i always tell no doesn’t
32:08
matter miss i’m going to start my own
32:10
business anyway yeah
32:12
i think okay that’s that’s fine but you
32:14
still need these skills
32:15
yeah um and it’s still going to be
32:17
important so
32:19
yeah everything is is planned and like i
32:23
say because i like the planning i like
32:24
to do the strategic things
32:27
and that’s all part of the the gatsby
32:29
planning that i’ve
32:30
played okay that’s good so when you went
32:33
for your interview and
32:34
you had to kind of um present on how
32:36
your school was meeting those gatsby
32:38
benchmarks
32:39
um where where did you kind of assess
32:42
the
32:43
the challenges for your school what what
32:46
are the
32:48
what are the weaker areas
32:53
we’re good at getting people into
32:55
apprenticeships and we have like a
32:57
higher level of apprenticeships what we
32:59
are finding though
33:01
is that our higher end students yeah are
33:03
actually the ones that are missing out
33:05
which seems quite ridiculous
33:07
um but making children aware
33:11
of the opportunity to go to
33:14
university is quite a challenge
33:17
especially in somerset
33:18
i think we’re the only county in england
33:20
that doesn’t have its own university
33:22
right i didn’t know that that’s really
33:23
interesting yeah we’re the only county i
33:25
mean we’re surrounded by
33:27
obviously bristol’s not far away you’ve
33:28
got exeter you’ve got bath you’ve got
33:30
plymouth
33:31
so we are surrounded but as a county
33:34
we’re the only county in england without
33:37
its own university
33:39
which is sad and
33:42
they don’t necessarily then realize what
33:45
is
33:46
on offer to them yeah and what they can
33:48
potentially do
33:49
it’s also it’s also a bit of a challenge
33:51
for students as well isn’t it because
33:53
the
33:53
the kind of pattern nowadays is that um
33:57
more and more students are staying at
33:58
home they’re staying closer to home
34:00
um they’re not traveling as far away for
34:03
for all sorts of
34:04
um financial reasons um
34:07
so for students in somerset you you’ve
34:10
got to make
34:11
make decisions that are kind of against
34:13
the national trends so you know i do
34:16
have to move away
34:17
and you were talking earlier about your
34:19
experience in bridgewater of those kids
34:20
who
34:21
who felt that you know the world ended
34:24
at uh yeah i think you said junction 24
34:26
you know that’s there nothing happens
34:29
past them
34:29
it’s a bit of a flat earth theory that
34:32
you know that’s the end of the world and
34:33
you fall off the end
34:35
um so yeah that’s that’s an interesting
34:38
kind of um
34:39
kind of contextual difficulty um
34:43
for you to overcome and it also makes it
34:46
harder
34:46
in terms of um you know meeting that
34:49
gatsby benchmark and ticking that box
34:51
and
34:51
and making sure that all your students
34:53
have had those experiences
34:55
of higher education because yeah it just
34:58
makes it a much bigger trip
34:59
out i know you like organizing things
35:01
but um
35:02
you know it is it’s a bigger coach trip
35:05
isn’t it
35:06
it is i mean exeter university
35:10
absolutely fantastic they have got some
35:12
some wonderful things to the university
35:14
on offer
35:15
yeah and that’s something i’m definitely
35:17
going to explore
35:19
um a little bit further afield in in
35:22
plymouth
35:22
as well so people do i suppose somerset
35:26
is one of those because of
35:27
the lovely m5 corridor that we’ve got
35:30
traveling to
35:32
universities is perhaps
35:36
easier in that respect so
35:39
we live in taunton getting on a train to
35:41
bristol you can be in bristol in 20
35:43
minutes
35:45
so although it is a little bit of
35:47
traveling a little bit further away
35:49
i think they perhaps have to
35:50
contextualize that when i was at
35:51
university in cardiff
35:52
i lived in panath so i was just outside
35:55
of cardiff
35:56
but it used to take me 45 minutes
35:59
to get from where i lived into the
36:02
university campus
36:04
and even for those that are living in
36:06
student housing
36:07
there is still that kind of travel
36:08
element so
36:10
there is the potential for people to
36:12
travel and um
36:13
and still live at home i just think that
36:16
we need to
36:16
to explore but even at the like the
36:19
really top end and that seems to be
36:22
in the school that i’m working in now
36:24
and my previous school
36:27
we quite rightly put a lot of emphasis
36:30
on our pupil premium students
36:32
and um i’m boosting their opportunities
36:35
which is where the cultural capital
36:37
element comes in
36:38
but one thing we need to be able to do
36:40
is to stretch and challenge our top end
36:43
as well
36:43
yeah because they have fantastic
36:46
opportunities
36:46
open to them and again they might not
36:48
always necessarily realize
36:51
what they’re capable of and so
36:54
i look back to when i was at college
36:57
and i went to old trafford to the um
37:00
oxbridge seminars yeah
37:04
i kind of went there and i looked and i
37:05
was like okay
37:07
no thanks um i decided it wasn’t for me
37:11
and it wasn’t necessarily something that
37:12
i i wanted to do and i
37:15
i got the grades i could have gone yeah
37:17
but i decided that
37:19
my future lay elsewhere but i think that
37:22
our top end students also deserve to be
37:25
pushed so that they can go and achieve
37:27
what they can potentially achieve as
37:29
well so we can’t
37:30
sometimes we get our focus
37:34
on a particular group or a particular
37:37
you know demographic
37:39
yeah and the whole point of inclusive
37:42
education is that
37:43
everybody is included and so with my
37:47
the cultural capital element of it i
37:50
want to make sure that
37:52
people on the whole spectrum get the
37:56
yeah the opportunities that are relevant
37:58
to them
37:59
and and that’s your benchmark three
38:01
isn’t it that’s meeting the needs of of
38:02
every student yeah absolutely um okay
38:06
so to recap a few of those things that
38:09
are going on
38:10
um in in no particular order um
38:13
clearly there are some issues around
38:16
work experience
38:18
simply because of the the kind of
38:20
current economic climate
38:23
and i’ve been to careers leader meetings
38:26
zoom meetings recently where
38:28
schools are already making the decision
38:30
to scrap
38:31
work experience entirely next academic
38:33
year
38:35
you know i think that partly be driven
38:37
by
38:39
gcse subject leaders who don’t want to
38:43
lose their students for significant
38:45
periods of time when they’ve already
38:46
lost them for
38:47
you know this month
38:51
you are taking on the economic element
38:56
of the pshe programme
38:59
which uh you’ve you’ve already described
39:01
yourself as being
39:03
um terrified of mortgages was that the
39:05
phrase
39:06
and and then leading on on economic
39:09
education so
39:10