Bramble Brae leads the way for Primary Futures Scotland

17 January 2019

From nurses to retailers, bankers to engineers, Bramble Brae School welcomed more than 25 volunteers into their classrooms yesterday (16 January) . The event was organised as part of on-going initiative from Primary Futures, a programme run by the charity Education and Employers, which aims to broaden the horizons and raise aspirations of children from the ages of five.

Bramble Brae hosted the event to showcase the importance of starting early when introducing young people to the world of work. After five years of working with Scottish primary schools, the focus for Primary Futures Scotland during 2019 is to encourage more schools to get careers related learning (CRL) embedded more deeply in the curriculum. Bramble Brae is an exemplar in this field.

Councillor John Wheeler, Education Operational Delivery Convener, said: “Primary Futures is a great initiative and we are very pleased that Bramble Brae hosted yesterday's event. As a council, we are committed to providing the best starts in life and positive outcomes for our children. The Primary Futures day complements our ambitions for young people and was also a lot of fun.”

Pupils from across the city enjoyed a ‘What’s my Line?’ assembly where volunteers described aspects of their jobs and then got the children to guess what job they think they do. Following on from this, volunteers spoke in small groups to the pupils, explaining in more detail what their job involves and how they use the knowledge and skills they learnt in the classroom in their current roles.

Particularly, the school used the volunteers to demonstrate how they use literacy and numeracy in their day-to-day life, getting children to think more broadly about what they could do in the future and make the link between what they learn at school and future jobs.

Research conducted by the charity Education and Employers in 2018, ‘Drawing the Future’ shows that children as young as six have already started to form opinions about what they can or cannot be in the future. 

Nearly 3,500 primary schools across the country have signed up to Primary Futures which is run by the charity Education and Employers in partnership with the National Association of Head Teachers. It enables primary schools to connect with 45,000 volunteers via their market-leading portal. Designed to inspire and motivate them to consider taking a path that they may not have thought possible because of preconceived assumptions shaped by their gender, ethnicity or social class.

In the photograpoh are (left to right) Ben Paton (11 years old Scotstown Primary School), Primary Futures Chief Executive Officer, Nick Chambers, Lucas Lima (10 years old, Bramble Brae School), Carly Davidson (11 years old, Quarryhill School), Bramble Brae Head Teacher Amanda Murray and Alba Reid (10 yars old Ferryhill School).