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This term has been packed with activities and workshops for the Sixth Form to develop their work ready skills and to prepare for life after Lancing.
Lower Sixth Interview Skills
Designed in a “speed dating” format, over 130 students from the Lower Sixth faced a real-life situation in February when they were invited for one-to-one job interviews with 14 parents and OLs acting as recruiters. Students were briefed in preparation for the event and arrived in groups for the formal interviews. Each student was interviewed for ten minutes and then had five minutes to discuss the experience with the recruiter, receiving individual feedback.
Whilst not being job specific, recruiters asked typical questions which come up in many interviews, these included:
- Tell me something about yourself?
- Tell me about a time when you had to think on your feet in order to deal with a situation.
- Was there a time when you were overwhelmed with work? How did you handle the situation?
- Tell me about a time when you were faced with a challenging situation.
- Tell me about a time when you went above and beyond your duties for a job or task.
- Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?
Across the morning, interviewers were able to give feedback to students on their interviews, how they dealt with the questions, their professionalism and their overall demeanour. For some students, this process is something that is familiar to them and to others the experience is entirely new.
Last year we started running our interview days for Upper Sixth and this year we have extended the programme to include the Lower Sixth. These are skills which all students need to develop, today students have been able to present themselves to complete strangers. The feedback has been positive with interviewers describing their interviewees as “polished, interesting, confident, articulate, building rapport and having good eye contact”. At the same time, we have been able to identify areas where students can improve, and we can target our support to assist them individually.
Diana Cree, Executive Director External Relations
It was a great pleasure to ‘mock interview’ Lancing Lower Sixth pupils in a morning and to be confronted with the energy, intelligence and sheer diversity of the current cohort at Lancing. Although this was their first experience of such an interview, they were more ready for the world than the cohort of 1972-3 that I was part of, and they will be a credit to Lancing wherever they go.
Whatever Lancing does, it does well, and this was a great process for both sides of the table.
Martin Todd (OL – Field’s 1969-1973)
Leaving Lancing Programme Commences
This term the Upper Sixth have commenced the Leaving Lancing Programme which aims to ensure students are gaining life skills essential for when they leave the College, whether to work, University or for a gap year. This programme is constantly reviewed and informed by feedback not only from current students but also from former students who left Lancing in the past three years. This term, in small group workshops, students have engaged in topics including LinkedIn and networking, street safety, financial survival skills and democracy and citizenship. The programme continues next term.
At an individual level, people with higher levels of essential skills experience improved social mobility, employment, earnings, job satisfaction and life satisfaction.
Essential Skills Tracker 2023, A Report by Skills Builder Partnership and funded by KPMG, CIPD and The Edge Foundation.