Skills Development Scotland (SDS) has created a new careers education programme to support teachers and pupils during the current challenging times.
It includes offline and online career education and career management resources, content and workshops to support pupils and teachers.
These include career education activities, Meet the Expert videos, webinars for school leavers, cyber skills activities and sessions about the My World of Work website. The sessions begin this week and will run over eight weeks.
SDS’s Director of Career, Information, Advice and Guidance Operations James Russell said: “We know that teachers and parents and carers are working hard through these unprecedented times and facing a wide variety of new challenges in the delivery of learning to young people across Scotland.
“That’s why we’ve created this programme which provides weekly sessions for pupils at each secondary school stage as well as support for those primary pupils making the transition to secondary school.”
James added: “SDS’s career information, advice and guidance services continues to adapt and evolve in response to Covid-19, to ensure we meet the changing needs of our customers through all the channels that are available to us.
“By working with our partners, we want to ensure that people can get the right support, at the right time and from the right person or organisation to help them progress and succeed.”
All the weekly activities come with a lesson plan for teachers and learning resources for pupils that they can work on independently. These are a mixture of hands-on and online activities with worksheets for pupils which we hope will help inspire young people to consider the choices and opportunities available to them.
The activities can be accessed through Scotland’s online career information and advice service, My World of Work.
Earlier this month SDS enhanced helpline and online services were formally launched by Minister for Business, Fair Work and Skills Jamie Hepburn.
Advisers across the country have been trained and are ready to support adults and young people whose education, job or future choices have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
As well as its existing support, SDS is offering direct access to free one-to-one career support with expert advisers over the telephone. The number to call is 0800 917 8000.