We work with businesses and schools to build capacity in language and employability skills.
School: Blairgowrie High School Project: Raising awareness of languages in the workplace with S2 pupils Level: Bronze Date: May 2022
The Blairgowrie High School Modern Languages department organised an online conference for all S2 pupils where representatives from local business joined classes virtually to talk about how they use languages in their workplaces, and how languages have helped them in their careers. After this, pupils completed follow-on activities: they completed a feedback form and researched online jobs available in Scotland using languages.
Following this, pupils taking languages into S3 were given the opportunity to visit one of the partner companies, GL Dameck, to find out for themselves more about what it does and how languages are used. Other partner companies were Gleneagles Hotel and Visit Scotland.
This is a well-planned and effective project from Blairgowrie High School. It is an excellent example of effective partnership working both within the school, between the DYW project officer and the Modern Languages department, and with local businesses and organisations. The partnership with the GLD group is particularly well-developed.
Creative planning has allowed a range of activities to take place even in the midst of the restrictions that have been in place this year, including the virtual conference and follow-up online research task. The planned site visit sounds exciting and engaging, particularly with the inclusion of a language-focused practical task on the day. There is strong evidence of thorough planning and preparation in advance of the project, and of on-going discussion and evaluation between the partners during the project, in order to achieve this.
Feedback from pupils demonstrates the success of this project in giving them new insight to the place of languages in different local career opportunities. It is good to see that this has also had a tangible impact already on uptake in languages in the cohort involved.