National Careers Week (NCW) is a Community Interest Company that works to improve careers education in schools and colleges. Its team have been working with our Careers in Ideas task force to raise awareness of IP sector careers, and very kindly provided a webinar for us during Careers in Ideas Week in November 2020, about improving your careers outreach efforts in schools.
NCW’s big event of the year is the main National Careers Week campaign, which in 2021 takes place from 1 to 6 March. Here their Enterprise Director Andrew (Bernie) Bernard tells us more about the campaign, their new “Virtual Careers Fair” offering, and how IP sector recruiters can get involved not only in March but throughout the year. This is a great way to inspire more young people into IP sector careers and widen the pool we recruit from. In CSR terms, it’s an opportunity to give something back to our country’s schools and the pupils and teachers there who have had such a difficult time since the Covid-19 pandemic began.
Bernie writes:
Hello, and welcome to National Careers Week #NCW2021. I’m Bernie (or Andrew Bernard to my mum) and I’m the Enterprise Director for NCW and NCWSkillsDays.
Since Nick Newman started the #SaveCareers campaign 10 years ago, even he couldn’t have dreamed it would be such an event in the UK careers calendar! In our tenth year we hold true to the original aim: empowering positive change through careers education, and as well as providing the space and time for educators to share their brilliant ideas and activities, we also focus on providing brilliant, free and relevant resources for teachers and young people. That’s it.
We’re free because as a Community Interest Company (CIC) we are non-profit-making and so the sponsorships we secure go towards delivering services, activities and resources for young people through the generous and open-minded support of organisations across the spectrum.
This year as well as dozens of simple tools and resources to make the planning and run-up to #NCW2021 straightforward, we’ve added a Virtual Careers Fair to the offerings to help teachers, careers advisers and students schedule visits to our exhibitors in their own time to suit their needs.
Please find below some activities and resources that you could use in schools outreach activities, or signpost to teachers and careers advisers.
Virtual Careers Fair
Our Virtual Careers Fair (VCF) will be open during NCW2021 at NCW2021.co.uk with a number of floors and rooms hosted by our sponsors where they will share some of their best resources and content – including organisations such as NatWest, NHS Careers, BAE Systems, Burberry and dozens of others.
There is still time for local businesses to get involved in the VCF; just email us at [email protected].
Launch Yourself! booklet
The Launch Yourself! booklet is a useful tool for KS3 and KS4 and we’ve had brilliant feedback about it because it can be used for a full day of personal exploration – whether students are in school or learning from home. See https://nationalcareersweek.com/ncop-launch-yourself/.
The booklet is an editable PDF file and links to a number of videos on our TV Channel NCWTV.co.uk. There you will find multiple channels and links to BBC Bitesize Careers, STEM.org.uk films, the Royal Society of Chemistry and a host of others.
Other new resources
We’re delivering new resources all the time. The preparatory activities – Pledges, Door Signs, Planner etc – are all now updated for #NCW2021: see https://ncw2020.co.uk/planning-publicity-printables/.
Other new resources have recently been uploaded, such as:
- Future Careers Booklet – to help with discussing the future of employment and work, LMI, AI etc: The Future of Work Guide
- What’s Your Story World Book Day resource is here for primary and KS3 – looking at our everyday superheroes, book cover designs and outlines of careers in publishing: What’s Your Story?
- 3 x simple dice games – 5, 10 and 15 minutes activities (including 5 minutes of positivity) are here: The NCW Dice Game
Finally a signpost for pupils looking into STEM careers: you can use the You’re the Catalyst – Careers in Chemistry booklet (it could also be good around KS3/4 options time):Â Your pathways to a career using Chemistry
Please do get involved with NCW as much as you can – up to the minute information can be found on Twitter and Instagram at @CareersWeek under the #NCW2021 hashtag and the rest of the resources can be found via www.nationalcareersweek.com and at www.NCW2021.co.uk. You can also sign up for free and informative newsletters via the pop-ups on these websites.
Enjoy #NCW2021 and be sure to tag us and use the hashtag on social media.
Cheers,
Bernie
Page published on 23rd February 2021
Page last modified on 23rd February 2021
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