Career exploration workshops in primary schools

Different workshops/activities were carried out in 30 Primary State Schools during the academic year 2024-2025 to help 10-year old children explore different skills/topics within a particular career/sector.  The different sectors explored were nursing, arts (media, acting, etc.) hospitality and teaching.

Different schools were assigned one sector from Arts, Nursing, Hospitality and Teaching. A workshop of about 90 minutes was carried out with each class in Year 5 (9-10 years) within the school. Each class gathered in the school’s hall, where children could move around and be split into smaller groups. Depending on the sector, different activities were carried out with the children. Pupils had the opportunity to move from one station to the next carrying out/participating in different activities by rotation, while at the same time meeting and talking to different professionals from the sector.

Some of the activities involved were dressing up, setting a table, cookie decorating, puppet-show, role-play, songs, filming, acting, editing, sound-engineering, skills-recognition and problem-solving tasks. Through the activities carried out by professionals from different sectors, transversal skills as well as literacy and numeracy skills taught at this level were pointed out, so that pupils could see the relevance of what they’re learning at school with the outside world of work. Some of the professionals involved also spoke to the children about their personal schooling and career paths. Each workshop allowed enough time for discussion, questions as well as processing related to career exploration. A total of 30 primary schools benefited from these workshops.

Objectives 

• To promote career education at primary level
• To challenge stereotypes related to gender and socio-economic status
• To make children aware of the connection between skills and subjects learnt at school with the place of work
• To strengthen transversal skills
• To promote lifelong learning

These workshops were carried out in collaboration with the Arts Council Malta, the Nursing Services Directorate within the Ministry for Health and Active Ageing, the Malta Tourism Authority and the Heads of Colleges network, Ministry for Education, Sport. Youth, Research and Innovation.