Preparing your children for the world of work
The school year is shortly starting again with thoughts of the summer soon to be a distant memory. What can you do to help make sure your child doesn’t get stuck in the gap between education and employment?
Here are just a few ideas to help prepare them for the world of work as the sun sets on school holidays.
Take action
Encourage your young people to take action and look out for any opportunities they have available to them. Are there any job fairs, open days, recruitment events which they can get to? Could they take part in volunteer work in their local area?
More help and ideas from LifeSkills
7 things you need to know about volunteering
Top 5 tips for effective networking
Foster crucial gap year skills
According to Ucas, over 28,000 young people took a gap year in 2015 before starting their studies.
If your child is off to see the world, they’ll face a steep learning curve that forces them to grow up pretty quickly. Ease them into it by helping them develop real-world skills. Give them more responsibilities around the house. Let them plan day trips or weekends away. You can even help them brush up on their map-reading skills.
More help and ideas from LifeSkills
Encourage more independence
Whether they’re taking a gap year, are heading to far away lands, or planning to dive straight into the world of work, independence is a key life skill for all young people.
Think about ways you can help encourage and develop your child’s independence. Perhaps they could start taking control of their finances by starting a part-time job, opening a young person’s or student bank account, or organising their own exam results party?
More help and ideas from LifeSkills
Bring back hobbies… or find new ones
For your child, it can feel like exams and coursework have become all consuming in recent months. Now’s a great chance for them to get back into any interests that have had to take a back seat – or even discover new ones.
From sports and music to hobbies and clubs – anything they really enjoy doing will help them relax and have fun. They’ll also boost important skills like discipline and teamwork. And employers are always keen to see that young people have a variety of interests outside of school.
More help and ideas from LifeSkills
Develop your skills and discover new ones
Get them thinking about money matters
This might be the trickiest one to make ‘fun’, but getting your child to think the right way about money now could set them up with a key skill they’ll use for life.
For help making financial subjects more engaging, direct your child to useful money skills activities like our money personality quiz, know your money terms and make it through the month.
