Almost 100 students and volunteers from all six schools within our Trust attended Data Centre World at London’s Excel Centre last week. Part of The Tech Show, DCW is the digital infrastructure industry’s biggest event of the year, and a fantastic opportunity for our students to explore careers in this fast-growing and interesting industry.
Supported by volunteer mentors from our Partners, the students spent the day completing careers and curriculum tasks, making connections and seeing the world of work in action – and having some fun with various Lego building, reaction games and other challenges around the show. Students left with contacts and opportunities for work experience as well as ideas for apprenticeships and graduate schemes, as well as some enterprising students from UTC Reading and The Bicester School, who worked with our marketing team to get some real-life work experience capturing the event.
It is rare for young people to be able to access this kind of event, and indeed our students are the only under 18s there, making them highly visible at the two-day show.
Wayne Edwards, Executive Director for School Improvement at ALET, and in charge of our Employer Engagement programme, was delighted with the event:
DCW is always a fantastic event for our students, providing valuable experience and exposure to great career opportunities. I was really pleased to see how engaged the students were, making the most of the opportunities and representing their schools really well. This kind of employer interaction is very unusual for Sixth Form students, but a fundamental part of a UTC education, and something that our Trust believes in strongly. It was wonderful to see the students leaving the event at the end of the day, excited for their futures and motivated to work hard to achieve their goals.
Owen Angell, a year 12 engineering student at UTC Reading, really enjoyed his first exposure to a trade show:
I had a great time, and really enjoyed spending time with Russell, my mentor, who seemed to know everyone as we walked around the show. He introduced me to loads of people, and gave me some great ideas for my future. I was really surprised to see so many companies here, and have a much better idea of the opportunities in this industry now. The experience of talking to so many people from industry was really valuable, and I really appreciated Russell encouraging me to choose who I wanted to talk to, so I could really explore the areas I’m interested in.
And David Holbrook, Head of Sixth Form at Theale Green School, had this to say about taking students from his school for the first time:
This was the first time I’ve ever taken students to any event like this, and wasn’t really sure what to expect, but my students loved it, and were discussing what they’d seen and what they might now do in this industry, all the way home. We’ll definitely be back next year and hope to bring even more students to get the benefits from this great event.
