.jpg)
Volunteers from different career backgrounds play an important role as part of the ‘Stoke Virtual Wallet’ programme; a Stoke Opportunity Area programme. By allowing volunteers to take an active role by featuring as the main subject for workshops, helps young people discover the range of opportunities and careers that are out there in their local area.
Stoke Virtual Wallet programme
The aim of this programme is to open new possibilities of learning and to connect children
at primary school learning stages with the world of work and careers by supporting the Opportunity Area.
A total of 35 primary schools are taking part in the pilot of this programme.
Galdstone Primary Academy, in Stoke-on-Trent, is one of the primary schools selected for this programme.
Stem Ambassadors/ Volunteers
Our STEM Ambassadors for the day were:
· Jonathan Westlake; an IT Consultant,
· Darren Kimberley; a former Street-lighting Estimator
· Amelia Clark; Social Media and Marketing Assistant.
On the day
The primary school’s Years 5 & 6 pupils had the experience of a Learn by Design’s ‘STEMployment day’ with the visiting volunteers supporting the activities and helping to encourage the future generations.
The ‘STEMployment day’ was a series of carousel workshops that are STEM (science, technology, engineering, maths) activities and focused on career learning.
The day started with an assembly session which featured the 3 volunteers. As all years of the school took their seats in assembly, they were reminded of the week being National Career’s Week which encouraged the focus on the breadth of careers out there for their futures. The whole school then took part in a guessing game of what the volunteers do/did for a job for 25 minutes.
Post assembly, the activities then continued with a carousel of hands on STEM activities with the school’s Years 5 & 6 pupils that were led by Learn by Design’s communicators to help the pupils explore the different employability skills and different STEM careers. Each of the sessions were an hour long.
The activities featured were:
• ‘Stoke on Trent Careers Quizdom’
• Circuit boards
• Observation and Communication games
• Robotics
Stem Ambassador’s quote:
"The workshops during the day were varied, engaging and fun! It was great to get across to the pupils what a career in computing can lead to." - Jonathan Westlake, Stem Ambassador
Teacher’s quote:
“Amazing! The day was planned well and linked to inspiring careers.” – Phil Boor, Year 5 Teacher.
Pupil’s quotes:
“The circuits was the best thing that I did today. I really enjoyed it!” – Year 6 pupil