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Volunteers urgently needed for schoolgirl mentoring event

15 Jun 2016

Can you help at ‘Women in Business Event’ for Whalley Range High School Year 7 students?

Volunteers are urgently needed for an event to teach schoolgirls about women in business, at Alliance MBS on Thursday, 23 June.

The invitation goes out to all female University staff, and also any male members of staff that have female friends or family who could also take part and who may or may not work at the University.

Whalley Range High School, our partners with Alliance MBS for a Business Class Partnership, needs female volunteers to take part in their Deep Learning Day on Thursday, 23 June, 9.30-10.30am, for  the Year 7 Event (11-12 year olds) ‘Women in the World of Work’. 

This is the third and final cohort of students to be involved in this activity and currently the School do not have enough volunteers to make it as successful as the previous events we have supported due to work commitments of past volunteers. 

Learning objectives for the session you would be involved in are to get the girls to:

  • reflect on goals, core values
  • develop understanding of skills and qualities employers want/need, career opportunities and challenges for women in the world of work
  • gain experience of talking to adults other than family or teachers

Your contribution will include the following:

  • You will visit a classroom/possibly two depending on numbers of volunteers attending.
  • Furniture and students will be arranged so that you can sit with a group of students to be ‘interviewed’ and then rotate onto the next group. All students should ideally have the opportunity to speak to different women in a group, rather than a class.
  • Students will have a sheet of prompt questions to ask you and questions of their own. Students can make notes on Job Description sheets about what you say. They don’t need to make loads of notes – the main thing is for them to meet you, take part in the interviewing and to find out as much about your jobs/careers/motivations etc. as they can.
  • You might want to talk to them about why you choose your job/career, your thoughts about wants/fantasy/reality/values/stepping stones etc.
  • You may want to start by getting the students to guess what you do, by asking YES/NO questions…it depends if your job is guessable!
  • You don’t need to have a speech prepared! You just need to be ready to answer questions and to share anything that you think is important about thinking about jobs/future etc.

Feedback from colleagues that have attended is that it is a fantastic opportunity. 

To volunteer

To volunteer for this event, contact: