This year, we delivered our first coaching programme with an organisation from the Third Sector. Pupils from Springwest Academy were supported by volunteer coaches from Macmillan Cancer Support to explore their career motivations, strengths and pathways to success.
We caught up with Sumaya and her coach Pardeep to hear about their coaching experience.
Sumaya
“I always knew I wanted to work with kids but I didn't know exactly what I wanted to be. Pardeep showed me my options for what jobs I could do to work with kids and inspired me to become a Primary School Teacher.
It was really helpful looking at the different job profiles on the Careers Pilot website and finding out what the jobs are like, how much you can get paid and information like that.
It made me want to think more about my subjects - I am worried some of my subjects won’t help with becoming a teacher but some of them do, for instance I picked Childcare which will be a really good subject for learning about working with children.
I’m excited to become a teacher, even though I know the path of becoming one is going to be stressful and hard, but I know I will push myself.
The programme made me know what I want to become and thanks for getting really nice people to coach us - if we say something wrong they don't get annoyed and they are calm and help you learn more about your future.”
“I’m excited to become a teacher - I know the path of becoming one is going to be stressful and hard, but I know I will push myself.”
Pardeep
“I had never been a coach before so I was very new to this. It has exceeded whatever I thought it would be, it’s been amazing - such a lovely experience.
It’s been nice to see Sumaya grow, in terms of being more confident in expressing her skills, her values and what she wants to do.
When we first met, she knew she wanted to help people, which was great, but when we looked at her skills, it was a bit of a challenge to think about them at first. Then we went through them using the activities in the handbook and she named so many. At the end of the sessions when we reflected back she could name her skills amazingly and with so much more confidence, which was really nice to see.
It’s an amazing organisation and what you're doing is great. I think it’s definitely helped Sumaya and even me - it’s not just a one way thing of helping the students, it helps the coaches too.
It has taught me a lot in terms of what jobs are available. There’s a lot of information out there that even I didn't know about until we started looking at it together.
It’s hard to know what you want to do when you’re young, and it’s great how this programme breaks that down and gives the students options, while making it clear that it’s ok if this changes. It’s just lovely and it’s something I wish I had when I was Sumaya’s age.”
“It has exceeded whatever I thought it would be, it’s been amazing - such a lovely experience.”
The Future Frontiers coaching programme can make a life-changing difference to young people and our business partners and coaches provide essential input and support. Get in touch to find out more.
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