► Making Decisions
As you move through your education and into the world of work there are some ‘key decisions’ that you make either on your own or with the help of your parents, teachers friends or advisers. Probably the first decision you made was about which secondary school you wanted to attend.
Think about what you needed to know to enable you to make this decision…
► What schools were available?
► Which subjects could you study?
► Can I walk or do I have to get a bus?
► Where are my friends going?
When you made this decision you would have gone through the same kind of process:
You will make other big decisions as you continue you education or work life; the information in Help4teens can help you with these.
These decisions happen at set points in your education:
► At age 13/14 (in year 8/9) when you have to choose the learning pathway or subjects that you will study until year 11
► At age 16 (the end of year 11) when you must decide whether to go into 6th Form, College, an Apprenticeship or work
► At age 18 when you might decide whether to go to university
Good research is the key to making a good decision finding out all about an option will help you decide whether it would suit you. Think about different jobs and careers; how many can you name: 50, 500, 5000.
If you just think about a single workplace for example your school …how many different jobs are there: head teacher, teacher, learning support assistant, mentor, attendance officer, caretaker, school meal supervisor, cook, science technician, IT technician…….. the list is huge. How can you ever know all of the jobs that you could possibly do and understand how you would get into each one?
To find a manageable number of options to consider you could think about your skills, interests and strengths and look for opportunities that match these. For example, if you are skilled with languages you may want to look for careers where this would be useful.
Another way to limit the number of jobs you research might be to look at all the jobs in a single type of work e.g. all jobs in construction or all jobs in teaching? You can do this by using out Interactive Career Search by job family section.
