EDUCATION
For Richard Morgan at The Perse School, the lessons pupils absorb out of the classroom could be hugely beneficial, and include “softer skills and employability skills, the interactions with people from all sorts of different areas of life that you don’t necessarily get in your normal schooling. It can be very easy to sit in a classroom doing what’s asked of you, but going out into the community and working with people you haven’t met before can actually have quite a powerful influence.” Mentoring pupils at other schools – a huge feature of life at The Perse for senior pupils – can bring a sense of responsibility that has a strong impact, he adds, helping prepare students ‘for what’s coming up in the future’. The school’s outdoor programme – where pupils lead others – can be extremely valuable, providing human interactions that, as he points out, “can be hard to access through the day-to- day curriculum. It’s these activities that will hopefully equip pupils for whatever life is going to throw at them.” While the job titles of the future industries they relate to may currently be Relationships with local organisations enable us to offer robust work experience
SET THE SCENE Oracy is a crucial skill, taught at The Perse (above); the iCAS programme is key at Impington International College (below)
no more than a spark in the eye of some yet-to-emerge entrepreneur, knowing how to get the best from others – human, AI or otherwise – is likely to remain a highly prized skill. Amid much high-profile coverage of changes to the job market, what will matter most – in addition to a continuing emphasis on solid qualifications – are skills such as collaboration, taking responsibility, being able to think independently and solve problems. While nobody can predict exactly what the world will be like, those soft skills will help today’s pupils embark on successful careers long into the future. “We want to organically develop those skills,” explains Omar Khan. “Creating conversation, being supportive and developing empathy for someone’s situation is really important – and not something we should be drilling into our students, but something we should naturally develop in them through our classrooms and through co-curricular activities. When they do leave school, it should have become second nature.”
40 SEPTEMBER 2023 CAMBSEDITION.CO.UK
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