Second to parents, teachers are the most influential people that young people will encounter. Research from the Department for Education shows that when careers are discussed as part of lessons, young people are more likely to be interested in a career linked to that subject.
As a teacher, you provide the inspirational drive and influence to engage young people with STEM subjects (science, design and technology, engineering, mathematics, computing), raising their aspirations and awareness of the opportunities that exist for them.
Independent research has shown that over 73% of businesses have struggled to recruit candidates with the appropriate STEM skills. Addressing the STEM skills ‘gap’ is among the most pressing of national priorities, important not just for economic prosperity but also for social mobility of young people.
For those of you in secondary or FE education in England, you may have heard of something called the Gatsby Careers Benchmarks. These Benchmarks set out a standard for Careers Education in England, including a need to link careers to the curriculum in all subjects (Gatsby Benchmark 4).
So, what does linking careers to the curriculum look like?
- Using an employer (ie STEM Ambassador) to provide context to your subject (through a competition, visit, activity, collaborative project or other planned activities).
- Providing information on the further study routes and careers that link to the subject (through real life examples, case studies, job descriptions or other materials in lessons).
- Highlighting the employability skills involved in participating in a project or activity and reflecting on what types of careers these skills would be useful to in the future.
If you are starting out and looking for easy ideas to try, start by linking different careers to the subject you are teaching. Once you are comfortable with these links, you can then explore making the references and contexts specific to different areas of your curriculum. Ideally over time these should be planned, as part of your normal lesson planning process.
Further guidance can be found in this Teacher's Guide to linking careers to the STEM curriculum.
Why not get involved in more careers education discussions in the Careers, Clubs and Cross-Curricular group? There are some great discussions about topics such as how to find out about different STEM careers and where to find inspiration for jobs linked to different subjects!
Join in and share your ideas for lesson ideas!