The third Orkney Careers Fair was held earlier this month at the Pickaquoy Centre and was attended by over 900 young people and adults from across the county.

As well as being attended by members of the general public, over 550 S4-S6 pupils from Stromness Academy and Kirkwall Grammar School, and S3-S4 pupils from Stronsay, Sanday and Westray Junior High Schools came along and accessed a wide variety of careers, education and training information, all geared to helping them understand the options available to them locally and further afield.

Along with local school pupils, 13 senior pupils from Farr High School in Bettyhill, made the trip over the Firth to attend the event.

Earlier this week, we offered an information session to parents and carers, to help them support their young person or adult ahead of the Orkney Careers Fair.
 
This session provided an overview of the event, the support that will be in place on the day and the information that is in place to help those visiting the event to plan who they want to speak to, and to prepare to get the most out of the event.
 
If you were unable to attend the event, a recorded version is available to view below:

As part of the Orkney Careers Fair, we are offering a series of breakout sessions for employers and teachers.  These sessions will take place between 3.30pm and 5pm on the day of the fair (Wednesday 2 October 2024) and they will cover a variety of topics that you may be interested in learning more about.
 
Bookings are now open for the breakout sessions, and you can read more about what they cover, as well as reserve your space below:

Developing the Young Workforce (DYW) Orkney and Skills Development Scotland (SDS) are joining forces to host the third Orkney Careers Fair this October in Kirkwall.

This free event will be held in the Arena of the Pickaquoy Centre on Wednesday 2 October 2024, from 9.30am-6pm, and will be open to school pupils, parents and guardians, teachers and the general public.

During the Orkney Careers Fair, we offered breakout sessions to local employers and educators.

There were three breakout sessions held in the afternoon covering a variety of topics.  These included 'Accessing the Hidden Workforce', a best practice session looking at 'Careers in the Classroom', and a session looking at 'Developing Meta-Skills'.

If you came along to the Orkney Careers Fair earlier this month, you will know that lots of our exhibitors put on fun, interactive activities to help young people learn more about their business or some of the skills needed to undertake certain roles.

One of the most popular activities was the plant simulator the Orkney Construction Training Group took up to Orkney for the event.

The day after the careers fair, the plant simulator was taken to Kirkwall Grammar School and Stromness Academy to let pupils who hadn’t been at the event try it out.

The simulator gave pupils a chance to try out their skills as a digger operator.  Katy from Orkney Construction Training Group was at both schools to talk to pupils and get them thinking about some of the different construction careers available, asking them to think how many trades were involved in building their school.

At Stromness Academy, the activity was offers as part of their ‘Lunch with an Employer’ event and Casey Construction came along to pupils to talk about some of the opportunities available in their business and answer questions from anyone interested in a career in the construction industry.

The plant simulator was really popular with pupils (and teachers!)

​We’d like to say a huge thank you to Orkney Construction Training Group for bringing this activity to the event and the schools the next day.

The second Orkney Careers Fair was held earlier this month at the Pickaquoy Centre and was attended by over 900 young people and adults from across the county.
 
As well as being attended by members of the general public, over 700 S3-S6 pupils from Stromness Academy, Kirkwall Grammar School, Stronsay, Sanday and Westray Junior High Schools came along and accessed a wide variety of careers, education and training information, all geared to helping them understand the options available to them locally and further afield.

Developing the Young Workforce (DYW) Orkney and Skills Development Scotland (SDS) are joining forces to host the second Orkney Careers Fair this September in Kirkwall.

This free event will be held in the Arena of the Pickaquoy Centre on Thursday 15 September 2022, from 9.30am-6pm, and will be open to school pupils, parents and guardians, teachers and the general public.