Career Awareness in Key Stage 2/3

Aim

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

Materials

. For each group of about six pupils, you will need one copy of the A3Life-Track poster and one pack of Life-Track cards. For the follow up activity, eachpupil 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, allitems could be printed or mounted on card.

Procedure

. Ask each group to create an imaginary character. It can be a man or awoman 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 therest of the group. Working together, the team decides where that event might occuraround the Life-Track path for the character they have created.For example, they might decide that ‘I passed my driving test’ occurred about the ageof 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’sdecision.If the group has selected a man for the character, ask them if the life track for awoman 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. Theperson could be a family friend, a member of the school staff, a school governor orsomeone in the public eye. This questionnaire focuses on the way people’s careersunfold. In carrying out this kind of survey, encourage the pupils to take notes and toask 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 WhenAnd 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 foundwhen they left school or college?