Year 9 Alternative Work Experience Day
Year 9 took part in an ‘Alternative Work Experience’ day, in partnership with the West Midlands Combined Authority and Urban Hax, looking at the regeneration of the Guildhall in Walsall town centre. Students were informed of the regeneration project taking place at the Guildhall and what the space will become. Students were set the task of coming up with a product which could be created and sold in one of the creative spaces Urban Hax are ultimately creating in the Guildhall, but in the short term in the ‘Meanwhile’ in the Sadlers Centre in Walsall.
We had 12 volunteers from a variety of companies and backgrounds to come and share their experiences in the workplace and talk about their careers. The volunteers then supported the students in creating their product ideas throughout the day, whilst pointing out employability skills they had observed. Students then presented their product with their group to their class, teacher and volunteer. A winning team was chosen from each form group and those groups then presented in front of the whole year group before a final winning group was announced by Geoff Henderson from Urban Hax and they won a VR Headset each.
The winning team were Art Kingdom who developed canvas from a photo which would be converted to painted art.
Throughout the day, students got to interact with volunteers from careers within:
- Walsall Football Club Events Management
- Morgan Sindall
- Impact Food Services – management and a chef
- BMet
- IT consultancy
- Lerroc Technical Services
- Civil Service
- Walsall College
- Access Creative
- NHS – midwife
- Mercian Trust
One of the volunteers from Access Creative said ‘I had a lovely time and was genuinely impressed by all the students that took part. There were some fantastic ideas, brilliant pitches from people who were reluctant and almost all of the students were engaged in the activity throughout the day. Their behaviour was excellent and all in all I wanted to congratulate you on putting together one of the best work experience days I've been a part of.’
A massive thank you to all those involved and congratulations to the winning team.
Miss V Hughes
The winning team (left to right): Geoff Henderson (Urban Hax), L. Burbanks, L. Aziz, L. Garratt and E. Petitt.