Modern Foreign Languages Career Week

Outwood Grange Academies Trust (OGAT) teamed up with an international engineering company to help teach students more about international careers that involve different languages.

Together, OGAT and Venator, based in the North East,  teamed up to launch Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) Careers Week. The week, which took part in January, was aimed at students at the OGAT secondary schools.

The students engaged in a week of targeted activities matching key industries, roles and how languages may play a role, they listened to videos from guest speakers who spoke about their roles in Construction, Fashion, the Civil Service and Travel and Tourism involved languages in different ways and had progressed their careers.

Katie Pennington, Associate Director of MFL at OGAT, said: “The aim of the MFL Careers Week was to open the eyes of our secondary school students to the vast number of international careers involving languages available to them, both in the public and private sector.

“Working with Venator was fantastic, and we were really able to put over the importance of languages to the students. It really was fantastic to see the schools developing links with this forward thinking company and I look forward to working with them again.

“Events like this are important to ensuring we support all students in making them employable young adults, helping them raise standards and transform lives.”

Stockton-based Venator worked with the numerous secondary schools across OGAT to show how real and varied the firm’s work was, and more importantly how languages played a huge role in developing the firm into an international business that operates in 89 country.

Seven of OGAT’s secondary schools held Skype interviews with members of Venator’s Customer Services Team, allowing students to quiz them. The students asked the Venator team about the company, their role within it, and how it involved languages.

Outwood Academy Ormesby welcomed a team from Venator into the school. The team ran taster sessions in five different languages, allowing pupils to hear first-hand about the different duties they perform.

Katie added: “The session at Outwood Academy Ormesby, which was timed in line  with Love of Learning and Europe Day, was a huge success.

“Staff and pupils alike really engaged in these sessions and extended their learning beyond the classroom, giving them plenty of informed food for thought”.