For their Kaleidoscope Day, our Year 10 students had their very own Careers Day. Activities included the Morrisby Profile, a psychometric test similar to those now used by over 80% of Fortune 500 companies, especially during assessment centres as part of their recruitment process, as well as a collaborative competition (coopetition) activity to gently prepare the students for group and problem solving activities also used by employers at their assessment centres. We spoke to some of our Year 10s to find out more.
From Bryony:
‘In the morning, we logged onto the Morrisby website, and completed verbal reasoning, abstract reasoning, mechanical awareness and spatial awareness tests. We also completed personality and aptitude tests. We then explored the website, and looked at jobs, and read the descriptions of what we are good at, based on the results of our tests. In the first half of the afternoon, we did a coopetition exercise, which involved calculating the number of light bulbs that Australia needed. Congratulations to 10G, who worked out that if the four groups worked together, their separate information combined gave them the results they needed. We then had to walk to the music hall from where we were, without walking in a straight line, or any one person leading the group or being at the back of the group for more than 10 paces. This was a very interesting problem, which the different groups solved using a variety of innovative techniques. Then, we had a talk from Joe Doherty about how to choose a university course. This was very illuminating, and we learned that even courses with the same name can be wildly different, at different universities. Overall, it was a highly informative day, which the majority of year 10 found useful.’
From Rebecca:
‘I was inspired by my results from the Morrisby test. I think the results were very accurate, and it gave some great suggestions for careers. The results I received prompted me to do some more research into A Level and university choices afterwards. The coopetition activity was very fun as it tested our problem solving skills and attention to detail when following instructions and I learnt a lot about teamwork from the activity.’
From Vicky:
‘One of the activities that was planned for us on the day was an online talk by Joe Doherty. Joe studied English at The University of Sheffield and now works for the schools’ liaison team. The presentation gave us advice on how to pick a university and subject courses. This was very useful for us, as he mentioned things we may have not considered before and showed us the variety of subjects you can pick, based on your interests. He also pointed out things to look out for when picking a university. These include stuff like: costs, campus distance from living areas, course reputation and syllabus, as well as the reputation of the area the University is based in. Overall, the presentation was really informative and helpful, especially for when we will have to make this decision ourselves.’