What do you want to do after GCSEs?
This was fascinating. All students said they wanted to go to sixth form and continue their studies. All also said that they wanted to go to university, and many were clear on what they wanted to do: engineering, medicine, law, architecture, business, an apprenticeship. The range of careers was striking, and several students reported that they talked about this a lot with the families. There was however a pattern of STEM 2 subjects being discussed. One student said he wanted to be a police officer “to look after people”. Students were less sure on how to get to university but knew that they wanted to get there; peer mentors would be able to look into this further. Students had universally high aspirations for themselves which shows a discord between aspiration and achievement, and it may be that the lack of experience within the families of how UK education works might be the issue here.
An excerpt from a paper.