Talking Futures: Inspiration and Upskilling - Building a skills challenge

This activity supports the following recommendations for good parental engagement:

• Create a parent-friendly environment, Build trust with socially-disadvantaged families, refocus careers activities to involve parents, stimulate family conversations, draw on parents as a resource.

A fun and engaging challenge for families of Key Stage 3 students to help facilitate conversations through a practical task and group reflections. Discussing careers may feel overwhelming to some parents and students so talking about skills and strengths in an informal way can be a good starting point for conversations to continue at home.

This is one of three activities that provide inspiration for parents and the chance to upskill and collaborate with their child. They can be used independently or packaged together to create a programme of interventions for a targeted set of families.

This activity may be easier to deliver face to face with a small group of families.

Activity objectives

• To start conversations about essential and transferable skills and prompt further conversations at home.
• To create a safe, supportive space where families and the school/college can focus on the skills of the student rather than on the complexities and pressures of education and career options and pathways.
• To build families’ confidence in engaging with school/college activities and provide a foundation for future careers guidance discussions.

Activity information

• Engaging parents
• 60 mins