We know that external work experience does not suit everyone, and we always want to make sure our students can learn from employers. This year we were delighted to welcome Yvonne Thomas, a Director of Learning & Development at The UK Border Force, to work with the year 10 students in school.

Yvonne hosted 2 workshops where she introduced The UK Border Force as an employer and talked about their position within The Home Office. More broadly she covered what being a civil servant means and the opportunities there are for young people to move into government departments.

Students learned where The UK Border Force fits alongside other law-enforcement agencies including sister agencies such as Immigration. They were shown how they operate at airports, postal centres, at sea and even in other countries. To bring it to life they were split into teams with each group representing a fictional country. Students had to come up with policies and ideas that they would implement if they were tasked with securing their countries borders.

Feedback from the students was positive and it was good to see individuals being inspired and groups facing the work challenge head-on. Huge thanks to Yvonne and The UK Border Force for reaching out to our students.