During school holidays we try and arrange trips with clear learning value for our young people, to work places, exhibitions, museums, sporting events etc. Last week some great guys at Barclays invited our ReachOut Junior Mentors from Bishop Challoner secondary school to the head office in Canary Wharf to get a little taste of what it’s like to work in a huge bank and to teach some public speaking and presentation skills as well.
17 young people in Year 10 & 11 came on the trip. As it’s still quite early in the school year there were a lot of faces I didn’t recognise, and names I didn’t know, so I was particularly interested to see how the trip unfolded. We arrived at Barclays at 11AM, and went up to the 30th floor to meet our hosts for the day. It was a bit quiet to start off with in our meet & greet session, which didn’t bode well considering the theme for the day. However, the kids gradually came out of their shells, and in the end there were some really excellent presentations delivered, with clear improvements on practices conducted earlier in the day! They had really taken on the advice of the Barclays employees when thinking about their presentations.
The Junior Mentors also got a real treat when Anne Grim (Managing Director, Global Head of Client Services at Barclays Wealth) popped in to say hi and chat to the kids about pathways into banking. Anne showed a good understanding of the issues facing young people and even encouraged them to email her if they wanted to ask anything else. The young people were really pleased that someone so senior took the time to come and meet them, and by this time there were questions aplenty!
We rounded the day off with some mixed sports at a local centre, where Justin Pickett (Junior Mentors Project Leader), was seen demonstrating some flamboyant footwork on the football pitch. It was a great day out for everyone, lots of learning and fun as well. Huge thanks to Nick Whitbread for organising everything and all his colleagues at Barclays for helping out!
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