Employers and industry experts are helping Ron Dearing students prepare for entering the work force thanks to greater employer led learning in English classes.
Ron Dearing UTC works with a wide variety of employer partners and is now incorporating even more employer led initiatives into its English curriculum to provide students with industry insights across all subjects.
In Year 10, students have been working with two of the UTC’s founding partners, KCOM and Spencer Group, to hone their public speaking skills.
The two business have been supporting the school’s oracy programme, with employees setting the students briefs based on real-life business examples. The students were tasked to consider and plan how they’d communicate the business’s message to key stakeholders, before presenting their ideas to the employers.
Meanwhile, Year 11 students who are currently studying Romeo and Juliet have engaged in a workshop delivered by Hull Truck Theatre to help bring the text to life.
The theatre’s Associate Director Tom Saunders worked with two actors to perform key scenes from the play to further enhance student understanding of the plot and characterisation and give them an opportunity to engage with the text as a performance.
KS5 students studying English A Level enjoyed an informal writing session with experienced Journalist, Harriet Williamson.
As part of their A-Level English exam, the students must write a feature article on a language issue such as ‘gender’ or ‘accent prejudice’ and make this accessible to somebody who has not studied linguistics. During the session Harriet shared a range of her own articles and headlines and discussed how she tackles tricky assignments.
Journalist Harriet, and Hull Truck Theatre’s Associate Director Tom, also hosted Lunch and Learn sessions for both KS4 and KS5 students to provide insights into their professions and highlight routes into the respective industries.
Head of English, Jack Campbell said: “Our students are attracted to Ron Dearing because of our strong employer links. This year we have really focused on developing this within the English curriculum.
“The Year 10 oracy project has enabled our students to see how the transferable skills gained in English lessons could be applied to help them thrive in the world of work.
“We were also really lucky to have Tom and the team from Hull Truck Theatre come into school to perform key scenes of Romeo and Juliet to our Year 11s – the sessions were engaging and enabled our students to see the play performed rather than read.
“It has been lovely to see students engaging with these opportunities and impressing our employer partners.”