25 June 2021
Mrs Bodil Chambers, Head of Higher Education & Careers
Lower Sixth students had a busy few days last week thinking about their future lives at our annual Higher Education Conference, followed by a work experience day.
As well as helping students to set up their UCAS accounts and start writing their personal statements, the HE Conference featured a blend of talks from universities, former students and our own specialists. Highlights included a fascinating talk from the University of Bath on the value of placement years as part of degree courses and, of course, our ever-popular alumnae panels. This year we held two alumnae sessions: one was an in-person question and answer session about university life with some of last year’s leavers, which was both entertaining and hugely informative. The other was a virtual event, with 19 former students at 16 different universities doing a wide range of courses from medicine to history of art, aimed at giving our students more specific insight into subjects and the universities popular with our students.
From university, thoughts turned to the workplace with a new event - Work Experience Day. The format wasn’t quite as we initially planned due to ongoing restrictions, but the Lower Sixth students enjoyed a fabulous day in the virtual company of Grayling Communications and BlueCrest Capital.
Grayling staff gave students a taste of the full range of roles and tasks involved in corporate communications and public affairs, setting challenges based on a case study of an airline wishing to improve its profile and connect with customers. BlueCrest staff from across the business engaged students in discussions and activities to help them understand the workings of an investment company. The students loved the day and we are very grateful to Woldingham parents Peter Cox, CEO BlueCrest Capital Management, and Sarah Scholefield, Global CEO Grayling and also Woldingham alumna, for helping us bring it to them.