Career Detectives
What is it?
A board game designed to help teachers give pupils from Year 5 onwards their first glimpse of the world of work. The resource includes 14 sector-specific “Career Cards”, which offer information on 168 careers, and 335 “Challenge Cards”, which cover key areas of the curriculum and, of course, careers. There is also a “Teachers’ Tips” resource pack that contains more than 30 additional games, exercises and starting points for lesson plans.
How does it work?
- “Dream Teams” challenges pupils to select the necessary job roles to create their chosen real or fictitious product or service.
- “Desert Island Survival” allows them to choose only six of 10 professionals who have crash landed on a desert island, to escape “turns-you-into-a-chickenitis”.
- The Career Cards can also be used as a stimulus for creative writing - for example, “my first day at work as a ...”. Or in a science lesson pupils could imagine what their careers might be if they lived 100 years ago or 100 years into the future.
What do people say?
Simon Hughes MP has praised it and so has the CBI. Most importantly, pupils and teachers have been enthusiastic. Yewlands Technology College in Sheffield reported that children who rarely played together were collaborating enthusiastically on the project.
What else?
Refresh your own thinking about career development by attending a National Career Guidance Show. The next events are at Wembley Stadium in London (7-8 March) and the Edinburgh Corn Exchange (28 March).
Use activities from BT’s Moving On website to stimulate your pupils’ plans for the future or try Axis Education’s job skills sheets to help prepare them for the world of work.
Find out more at www.biggreenfox.com.
