Employment

Balfron High School’s project promotes careers with languages in a variety of ways, including: 

• BBC video clip project with senior Spanish and French classes; learners watched and noted down key information about the job in question and translated their notes into French or Spanish. Skills Development Scotland shared key websites with the class which would help them to find information on careers using languages, and to look at the range of careers where they can use a languages degree They then created a Careers with Languages board for display in school.  
• Participation in the SEET Our World competition, which includes meeting professionals who use languages at work and developing a range of employability skills.
• Participation in the GCHQ virtual languages competition where S3 teams solve language-based puzzles. 
• Career talks from former pupils during Languages Week Scotland including a student currently working abroad as an assistant in a primary school, and a translator. 

This is an excellent submission from Balfron High School, richly deserving of a GOLD award. The stated aim to ‘…promote language learning within our school and highlight the variety of careers available to young people studying foreign languages’ is clearly achieved through a wide and engaging range of activities across several year groups. The verification panel was impressed by their long-term approach to promoting languages and by the way in which DYW/Employability is now embedded within the curriculum at Balfron. Using the BBC Bitesize clips as a stimulus, leading to SDS input and resulting in the production of career boards, is a creative and multi-layered project which the panel strongly commended. This commitment and creativity is reflected in the other projects that Balfron High School has developed and participated in, and we want to applaud the school on its exemplary approach. Congratulations!