CEIAG & Careers Leaders
Creating and Using a Changing World of Work Display
Thursday 8th October 2020
One of the key areas of The CDI framework and indeed the Gatsby Benchmarks that teachers and pupils find difficult is Benchmark 2, Learning from Labour Market Information. For some reason it seems such an amorphous topic to many people. In this blog I explore the possibilities of developing a display board to explain what LMI is and share some ideas of how to find and develop activities to capitalise on the display.
Where do I start?
Start with a title What is LMI and from that you 'grow' the main areas, the sub headings below. I'd suggest that you use these 'headings' but how you lay this out is up to you but thought diagrams or columns work equally well. I include some ideas of what to include in each sector.
The sectors, industries and businesses that operate there
This needs to be applicable to the local area your school is in. Who are the 'big' local employers? Do you have a science park or an airport nearby? An example of a fantastic list of local sectors can be found on the LMIHumber website
The jobs that exist
I'd limit this to a few examples in a well known local business' for illustrative purposes. Challenge pupils to identify others.
The number and type of job vacancies
You will probably find that your local careers hub or LEP provide local LMI and produce updates that you can change periodically to keep the display fresh.
The sectors and industries that are predicted to grow in the coming years
The local and national press are great sources for up to date articles on growing industries. You can if you wish introduce news articles on shrinking sectors too or the effect of automation on job availability
Travel to work patterns
Introduce questions such as 'Would you move home for a job?' 'Where are you willing to travel to for a good job?' 'How long a commute would you consider acceptable?'
The kinds of skills that are/will be needed by industries and businesses
Again keep this local. Your employer engagement partners will be able to support you in providing info for this section.
Pay and progression patterns.
This is an ideal sector for using alumni input - Where are previous pupils working? How did their career unfold so far? Where do they expect it to go? What further studying did they need to do etc. Or you could use staff or parent examples.
Before I finish off with links and resources, I'd love to see picture of the displays you produce. Especially if you're happy for me to share them here to support other people's development. Just let me know if I can share and if you'd rather your name or school isn't included.
Now, for some further ideas.
Next Steps
- Include the LMI for all widget on your school careers page
- Share the What is LMI video on plasma screens or in tutor time or assemblies? Or tweet or send via parentshare to parents and guardians.
- Encourage and support subject areas to have a jobs using (subject) board and include adverts for jobs as part of it.
- Encourage pupils to explore a sector that interests them, use the worksheet in the KS3 resources link below to prompt them. Perhaps even have a year group competition. the student, small group or form group that produces best sector posters or PowerPoints get a prize. Use PowerPoints on school display screens.
Resources
Lesson plan activities for KS3 from The Careers and Enterprise Company Resource Directory
Lesson plan activities for KS4 from the National Careers Service
Further reading
The LMI for all website
