Sarah Hopkins is keynote speaker at Launch of Moreton Hall Life Skills Diploma

"It was fantastic to act as the keynote speaker at the launch of the Moreton Hall Life Skills Diploma last weekend", said Sarah Hopkins.

 Saturday morning saw Sarah talking to eighty lower sixth girls to provide them with insight into the world of work and how they can ready themselves for this stage of their lives.

 "It gave me real pleasure in talking to this talented group and sharing the current trends in the recruitment market and the landscape they are going to be approaching.  It was important to me to encourage the girls to focus on what they enjoy doing - recognising that many of the roles they will be recruited for don't exist currently.  Plus that they need to celebrate their indviduality and put effort into honing their behaviours and skills," said Sarah.

The session focused on how they can develop skills to help them best represent themselves to potential colleges, universities and employers - showing the real skill sets we all need of resilience, confidence, communication and the ability to deal with people, and application / commitment to goals - whether in the class room, sports field, volunteering or work.

The competitive landscape facing these youngsters means that the ability to illustrate confidently; talking and describing their experiences - is as important to develop alongside the traditional academic achievements.  They soon grasped that many of these skills required are already being developed and will be transferable but key is to respect and evidence these skills, so they can present them to potential employers.

It was wonderful to be joined by Miranda Jones, Graduate Rural Surveyor, Savills.  Miranda was able to provide recent insight into her experiences of A'levels, University and her first year at Savills as she works towards her assessment of professional competence, with the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors.

The girls responded really well to Miranda and took over from Sarah in asking questions and picking her brains - particularly illustrating the need to research potential courses and employers, plus the value in doing internships and work experience whenever possible.

"This is such a fabulous opportunity for these girls and something which I would have relished at that stage.  It has been great to be involved in such an invaluable project" said Miranda.

This forward thinking school is offering the first Life Skills Diploma; the enthusiasm and energy in the room showed that the girls were really embracing the opportunity  to equip themselves - taking on board hints and tips to present profiles which illustrated how much they had listened and absorbed from the session.

Its going to be exciting to follow their progress and we are already looking forward to attending the awarding of Diplomas in summer 2020.