The Careers Team at Stephen Longfellow Academy worked in partnership with the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) to support Year 10 and Year 11 students learn about the importance of a CV and also produce a working CV.
Students were given an initial assembly presentation by Saffiya Sultan from the DWP about what a CV is, what is the benefit of having one, essentials to put on a CV and what to leave out. Students were then given the opportunity to attend a practical workshop with Saffiyah and the academies Careers team who offered additional support to help students create their own CV’s.
In the workshops, students were guided to use a template to produce their CV’s on. Students were also given a 100 CV words sheet to support them further. The workshops were 40 minutes each.
Feedback from students showed that:
- 75% of students said they were not confident in doing a CV at the start of the session. After the session, the majority of students said their confidence had increased in creating CV’s.
- 100% of the students said they would recommend the workshop to future students. Students were also shown the Skills 2 Succeed website, where they can access careers modules to support them to improve their CV’s further.
Feedback from DWP Schools Adviser (Saffiya Sultan), can be seen below.
“The students listened and engaged well, you could see that they felt the CV was an important tool they could use to write down their skills and improve their employability chances on leaving school.”
Not all students were able to create their CV’s in full in the time allocated, so further 1-1 student meetings will be held with the schools careers team to ensure they are completed.