Oasis Academy Mayfield were delighted to welcome the BBC Bitesize Careers Roadshow to their Years 8-11 on Wednesday 1st November.
The BBC Bitesize Schools Tour runs every year and aims to visit 125,000+ secondary school students across the UK. Delivered in partnership with local BBC radio stations, the panel includes a BBC staff member plus panellists from the local community whose work benefits or includes storytelling.
The panels support schools in demonstrating the range of career opportunities available within the creative industries, including the BBC’s new talent schemes and apprenticeships. The panellists cover a variety of topics such as relevant qualifications, personal anecdotes, advice on work experience, the importance of soft skills for the workplace as well as students being able to ask their own questions via the microphone rugby ball, affectionately dubbed “Mikey Ball” by Malcolm in Year 8.
Oasis Mayfield was lucky enough to be one such school that was visited on their tour of Southampton between Tuesday 31st and Friday 3rd November and they were pleased to welcome Zoe Jacobs from the National Oceanographic Centre in Southampton whose role as a research scientist looks at the impact of climate change on fisheries, coral and mapping how ocean currents will impact our world to come. Aisha Attah a branding marketing executive from GottaBe! who has worked with a number of big brands including Uber and Dominoes and had completed marketing with the NHS during the Covid pandemic to ensure that the Polish community were receiving accurate information about the virus and vaccination process. And lastly, Joe May, a production secretary who has worked on popular shows such as Hunted, Britain’s Got Talent and The Only Way is Essex ensuring that production runs smoothly by booking venues, ensuring celebrities are in the right place at the right time, retrieving camera cards from all over the country to take back to the BBC for editing.
Staff and students thoroughly enjoyed the experience with staff commenting on the smoothness of the production, the clear links to curriculum, particularly for subjects such as English, Maths and Geography as the panellists utilised these subjects so often in their careers. Students too, were keen to ask questions and stayed behind to engage with the panellists further.
Malcolm, in Year 8, who was brave enough to ask the first question in the first session of the day commented “it was really interesting hearing about jobs I didn’t know about before. I really liked Joe’s job; I liked how many people he got to meet all over the country.”
Amelia, in Year 11, also commented “it just makes you think. Even if it wasn’t a job you weren’t thinking about before, you could see how it might link into things you were interested in. But it did make me realise just how many different careers there are.”