Westfield Primary School has again held its Fantastic Futures Week for the seventh year running to raise children’s awareness of different professions.

During the week, the children were very fortunate to learn about a huge variety of different and amazing jobs. The school’s visitors ranged from local universities, the NHS, architects, engineers, the CPS, the UK Space Agency and the Bristol Old Vic Theatre.

Westfield views the week as an integral part of its programme for pupils’ personal development and experiences, rated as outstanding by Ofsted earlier this year.

The school is very aware that by the age of seven or eight, career ideas have already started to form, usually based on people that the children already know.

Research has also shown that those as young as five years old perceive gender roles in relation to careers. Unfortunately, children then start to rule out career options from an early age and their choices are often influenced by what they see in the media.

Westfield has worked hard to form strong links with local employers, to ensure that the children have access to role models in a wide range of sectors to help them develop an awareness of career options at an early age. Westfield sees this as vital to ensure that all pupils - regardless of gender and backgrounds - can fulfil their full potential.

Ambition is one of Westfield’s important school values, and Fantastic Futures is used to encourage the children to aim high and to be the best that they can be. We may even have inspired our engineers, architects or even palaeontologists of the future!