Mark Stiles (McLaren Racing) volunteered with Words for Work at Bishop David Brown School. Read about his experiences below:
Session 1
Today was the first workshop session on the Words for Work programme at Bishop David Brown School in Woking. I was a bit nervous, I suppose because I was a little unsure of what to expect. I’ve always felt that a bit of nerves is a good thing though, as it shows you care about what you’re doing and want to do well.
After signing in at the school reception desk we were escorted to the library where we met with the teachers we’d been introduced to previously. When the children came into the room they all came over and introduced themselves with a handshake. It was interesting to see, even at this early stage, the varying levels of confidence and interaction displayed by the students. Some made good eye contact and spoke clearly and fluently, while others looked at the floor and muttered their name. Obviously in this instance I didn’t form any opinions or judgements, but in a professional setting first impressions are hugely important, which underlines the importance of what we’re doing with Words for Work.
We were then assigned to our groups and fellow volunteers from Woking Borough Council. I was with Louise, whom I’d met at the training day.
The first activity was an ice breaker that involved the whole class. We each had to stand up in turn, introduce ourselves and tell everyone something about ourselves. I said “Hi my name is Mark, I work for McLaren Racing, and I don’t like getting up in the morning” Following this, a student had to identify somebody else in the room and remember what their statement was about. A correct answer resulted in the speaker being able to sit down, after which the buck was passed to the person they remembered a fact about. As more and more people began to sit down, the difficulty facing those still left increased. The last handful struggled a bit (as I would have!), but amazingly everyone was able to sit down in the end. Afterwards I made a mental note to listen more carefully next time to avoid being caught out!
After a question and answers session we returned to our groups and had a short discussion about the interview skills and techniques used by the volunteers when they provided their responses.
The students correctly identified most of the techniques that me, Louise and the other volunteers will have used during our interview session, although there were a few more subtle ones that they needed some help to identify. I tried to use as much body language and expression as I could to help explain thingswhile also making it a bit humorous to retain the attention of the children. It seemed to work quite well!
The final task for the session followed on from our group discussions. As a group we had to make an A2 sized poster to summarise what we had learnt about interview techniques. This was a fun task that could involve the whole group in equal measure. One member was made responsible for taking photographs, while another took on an acting role to demonstrate the techniques visually in the photographs. Other group members were made responsible for creating typed text and drawn titles and art work. The whole group worked exceptionally well as a team by pooling their ideas and resources, and despite a few problems with printing text and photos it all came together at the end with seconds to spare! The group agreed that we’d done a good job and we were all pleased with our work. My cutting and sticking skills were pushed to the limit!
The last few minutes of the session were spent looking at the work completed by the other groups. It was very interesting to see the different approaches to the task. Groups with volunteers from a technical background seemed to focus on appearance, interest and body language techniques while groups with volunteers who work in HR or similar areas focused on researching the company and job and obtaining some background info.
We then said our goodbyes and the students left. The volunteers and teachers had a short discussion about the session and how we found it before we left.
I was extremely surprised with how the first session went. I thought the tasks were really well structured and planned, and we have a group of students who look like they will be able to develop their skills in many areas during the course. I really enjoyed it!
Session 2
In today’s session the students gave presentations they had prepared in their groups since the last Words for Work session. The topic of the presentations was communication techniques, so the students were able to use some of the skills we spoke about in the last workshop as examples.
In general the standard of the presentations was good given the short time frame that was allowed for their preparation. The students made good use of colour in their Power Point slides and seemed to have worked well in their teams. Most of the students read from an A4 page, struggled to make eye contact or use gestures to emphasise their points. One or two groups made use of role play to portray scenes of good and bad job interviews. This proved to be very effective.
After each presentation the groups took questions from the floor about how they prepared their work, why they had made certain decisions and the way in which their material was presented. I asked one group about the use of images in their slides and how they felt that the pictures improved their presentation. The answer that was given was almost exactly what I’d have said if asked the same question!
Following completion of the presentations the volunteers all sat with their groups to discuss and document the skills used for their presentations, and touch on areas that could be improved for next time. The plan was for the groups to watch video playbacks of their own presentations to help with the discussion, but technical difficulties resulted in many of the videos not being made available in time. This was a little frustrating, as it would have been good for the students to be able to see themselves on film to aid their understanding.
I tried to emphasise the importance of making eye contact with the audience when giving a presentation, and to expand on bullet points printed on the slides rather than simply reading text straight from them. I had to give presentations and run meetings fairly regularly during my degree and have continued to do so in my employment so far, so it was good to be able to draw on my experiences to help the students in the group.
The session culminated in each group producing a sheet giving tips on good presentation skills and techniques. Ideas seemed to flow very well from the students in our group. Perhaps a follow-up to this exercise would be for the students to make another attempt at producing and giving their presentations with the volunteers to put their new experience and learning into practice?
In all the session was relatively low key and ran at a much slower pace than the first one. There was less rushing around and frantic activity, but perhaps this aided the students’ learning and helped them to properly take on board what was being discussed.
Session 3
In today’s session we began with a group exercise involving writing down various communication techniques on paper flags. The idea was to then use these flags to acknowledge use of the various techniques by each person in the group throughout the session. To be honest this didn’t really work as planned; the whole exercise was fairly quickly forgotten and as a group we only realised we hadn’t made use of the flags shortly before the end of the session!
The main focus of the morning’s activities was the introduction to the final group task that we’ll be working on for the remainder of the sessions. The brief is to produce a piece of work to convey everything that the students have learned during the classes and to then present it to an audience of fellow students, parents, teachers and guests.
After introducing the task we were sent away in our groups to start work on generating some ideas and producing a plan.
To begin with, inspiration was somewhat lacking in our group and the students needed some coaching to quickly settle on a basic idea that they could develop. The conversation strayed a little from the topic in hand, but this in fact led to the group having a good idea. The mention of ‘Britain’s Got Talent’ by one of the group members ignited a spark in my own head and I suggested that the group could use a similar format for their presentation. This was a popular suggestion and it was agreed that we would use this as the basis for our work.
With a little more coaching and suggestion, the whole group started to become more engaged and involved with idea generation. It seems that interest in the task is much improved if there can be familiarity for the students in what they are working on. Personally speaking, I always prefer it if I can imagine the final outcome when working on a project, so I suppose this trait is the same for many of the students.
We spent the next hour deciding on roughly what would happen during our presentation, who would do and say what and what we would need to make and/or prepare in subsequent sessions. We finished with a hand written set of notes that I have since typed up so that we can make copies if required. The group now has a clear direction and goal and everyone seems to be comfortable with the approach we are taking.
At the end of the session we were also informed that our group had been chosen to visit the local radio station to record a short piece that would be aired at a later time. This will happen during the afternoon following the next Words for Work session, and we’re all looking forward to this already.
