Spark Tees Valley

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Spark Tees Valley

In Summary:

Meet Ethan, an operations technician who has a very important job turning rubbish into power!. He works at a place called Suez where they take the waste from towns like Middlesbrough and Stockton and use it as fuel. Instead of using coal or gas, they burn this rubbish to make clean electricity that goes into the grid to power our homes.

Here is what Ethan gets up to during his day:

• Morning Checks: For the first half of his day, Ethan and his team walk around the plant to check the equipment. They have to make sure all the machines are running safely and tell their manager if they find any broken parts or problems.

• Operating Giant Cranes: After dinner time (lunch), the team swaps jobs. Ethan goes to the control room to work on the waste cranes. He makes sure the lorries have enough space to tip out their rubbish, mixes the waste so it burns evenly, and feeds the furnaces to keep the electricity being made.

How did Ethan get this cool job? Ethan went to college in Middlesbrough for a year to get a diploma in Process Technology. After that, he became an apprentice with a company called Suez. This means he spent two years learning the skills and taking exams while working at the plant before he got the job full-time.

Why does he love it? Ethan says the best bit about his job is helping to solve a big environmental challenge. Humans produce a lot of rubbish these days, and Ethan feels proud that he can stop that waste from being buried in the ground in landfills.

Spark Tees Valley

In Summary:

Meet Connor! He works as an apprentice shift operator at a big industrial plant.

You can think of Connor as the “eyes and ears” of the building. His main job is to watch the systems to make sure everything is working smoothly. If something goes wrong, he helps find the solution to fix it.

Here is what Connor’s day looks like:

• Early Start: He arrives at work at half-past six in the morning!.

• Team Talk: First, he has a meeting to listen to what happened on the shift before his, so he knows if there are any problems to look out for.

• Checks: He walks around to do his startup checks, looking at things like salt, “riddlings,” and ash. He also shadows (follows) other workers to learn how to check the waste properly.

How did he get the job? After he left school, Connor took a special course called City and Guilds three days a week to learn the skills he needed. He worked very hard and finished two courses in just one year. After getting his grades, he applied to a company called Suez and got the job.

Connor says the best part of his job is teamwork and problem-solving. If the plant has a problem, he acts like a detective to investigate, look at the patterns, and find the cause so they can get everything back to normal.

Spark Tees Valley

In Summary:

Meet Ben, who is working as a trainee engineer (an intern) for one year. He started his job last August and has five months left to go.

Ben’s main job is problem-solving. He helps other engineers by looking at computer data to figure out what has gone wrong at the site and how to fix it.

What does Ben do all day?

• He might go outside to check on the builders (contractors) to see if they are doing a good job or need anything.

• He might be in meetings to talk about big projects.

• He might be sitting at his desk looking at information to understand what is happening.

How did he get this job? When Ben was at school, he really liked Chemistry and Maths. Because he enjoyed those subjects, he went to Newcastle University to study chemical engineering for three years. He wanted to see what it was like to work in a real industrial place.

Ben’s favourite part of the job is seeing the projects he works on come to real life. He loves looking at plans on his computer and then going outside to see them built into something physical.

Spark Tees Valley

In Summary:

Meet Ben, who has a very important job called a contract manager. His job changes a lot from day to day, which keeps things interesting. He works closely with a team called Blue Phoenix to help them do their work better by looking at information and numbers.

Here is what Ben does in his job:

• He is a Number Whizz: Ben is a trained accountant. He started his career as a financial analyst, which means he spent a lot of time “number crunching” on computer programmes like Excel. He got his new job because the company needed someone who was really good at using data to spot ways to improve things.

• He travels around the UK: Before the pandemic, Ben worked in an office, but now he mostly works from home. However, he still gets to travel to visit work sites in places like Cornwall, Bristol, Ipswich, and the Northeast.

• He is an Inventor of Ideas: Ben’s favourite part of the job is coming up with new ideas. He talks to the directors (the big bosses) to get a “thumbs up” for his plans, and then he loves watching his ideas come to life and help the business.

Spark Tees Valley

Use the planners below to get an in depth view of your school provision across subjects

These planners offer an overview of the nitty gritty detail for each subject, month by month to show where CRL is being incorporated into the curriculum. Use them to identify where gaps in provision are and to ensure that the same resources aren’t used year on year for a topic such as ‘electricity’. That is not to say that students shouldn’t see resources more than once. On the contrary, multiple use over a number of years helps ‘normalise’ students’ understanding of what opportunities are ahead of them.

CRL fitted to YOUR curriculum.

From our experience, more focussed CRL work tends to work best as children develop into KS2. Typically, younger children are just making sense of their own place in the immediate world around them. As they get older, and their understanding of a wider world and their future in it starts to develop further, CRL becomes more and more relevant.

The Spark website is continually growing so an annual review of your resources using these planners will be helpful. What was an area with little resource last year will no doubt have been prioritised for content this year. Use the National Curriculum links and search tool to see if gaps have been filled.

Please contact us if you feel there is something obvious missing that we could help create.

Spark Tees Valley

Use the planners below to get an overview of your school provision across subjects

To be able to embed an example of a career or role into every aspect of the curriculum is perhaps over ambitious but this planner allows you to identify where CRL is already being implemented in the curriculum. From that knowledge you can use the growing resources available on Spark to fill in the gaps as much as you feel is appropriate. CRL fitted to YOUR curriculum.

From our experience, more focussed CRL work tends to work best as children develop into KS2. Typically, younger children are just making sense of their own place in the immediate world around them. As they get older, and their understanding of a wider world and their future in it starts to develop further, CRL becomes more and more relevant.

Use this planner in conjunction with the subject focussed planners to look for opportunities to embed further activities or projects. But let’s be honest, we can’t realistically do it for every subject all the time!

Resources on this website along with regular updates from Spark about available events and projects will help you to fill in as many gaps as you want to but please contact us if you feel there is something obvious missing that we could help create.

Spark Tees Valley

Use the planners below to get an overview of your school provision

To be able to embed an example of a career or role into every aspect of the curriculum is perhaps over ambitious but this overview allows you to see what you already do in school; events, visits, visitors, projects. With that information you can ensure a strategic, progressive and evenly planned approach to your CRL work.

From our experience, more focussed CRL work tends to work best as children develop into KS2. Typically, younger children are just making sense of their own place in the immediate world around them. As they get older, and their understanding of a wider world and their future in it starts to develop further, CRL becomes more and more relevant.

Use this planner in conjunction with the subject focussed planners to look for opportunities to embed further activities or projects. But let’s be honest, we can’t realistically do it for every subject all the time!

Resources on this website along with regular updates from Spark about available events and projects will help you to fill in as many gaps as you want to but please contact us if you feel there is something obvious missing that we could help create.

Spark Tees Valley

In Summary:

Meet Elwira, who works as a Fixed Asset Accountant, which means she looks after the money used to buy big, important things for her company. For example, she helps handle the finances when the company needs to buy cranes, forklift trucks, or even when they want to build a whole new warehouse.

Although Elwira spends most of her days in an office working on a computer with numbers, she also works closely with engineers to help them deliver projects. At least twice a month, she visits these engineers to check on their projects and talk about how much money they have spent and how much is left to spend.

Elwira says that to do her job well, you need to be good at using computers and you really need to like maths. It is also very important to be good at talking to people, because she has to speak with many different workers, such as directors and engineers.

Even as a child, Elwira always liked numbers and maths, and she loves her job because she can use her number skills to help build real, tangible things. She has worked at PD Ports for 11 years because the people are friendly and supportive, making her want to go to work with a smile on her face.

Spark Tees Valley

In Summary:

This is Emily and she is an Assistant Civil Engineer.

What does she do? Emily has a very important job looking after structures, buildings, and roads. She doesn’t work alone; she works with teams to look after old buildings and helps designers plan brand-new ones. She also goes out to inspect structures to make sure they are safe.

What skills does she use? Because Emily works on many different projects with lots of different teams, she says teamwork is essential. She also uses good communication skills so she can talk to and understand all the different people she works with.

What did she like at school? When Emily was at school and college, she really enjoyed Physics and Maths.

How did she pick this job? At first, Emily liked cars and thought she wanted to be a mechanical engineer. However, she did some work experience at a place called PD Ports and realised she actually loved civil engineering much more.

Emily says the best thing about her job is working with so many people who have different life experiences. She loves being able to learn new things from everyone she meets.

Spark Tees Valley

In Summary:

Meet Jacob! He works as an estate surveyor apprentice, which means his job is to look after all the land and buildings owned by a company called PD Ports.

Here is what you need to know about Jacob’s job:

• He looks after big and small things: Jacob manages a “property portfolio,” which is a collection of different places ranging from a massive, humongous warehouse to a simple sign on the side of the road.

• He goes on adventures: He doesn’t just sit at a desk; he often wears a hard hat and high-vis jacket to visit sites. He might measure a warehouse or check to see if a building is broken and needs repairs.

• He solves puzzles: Jacob uses a skill called critical thinking. This means he has to figure out answers to new problems every day, such as understanding important papers called leases or deciding how to fix a building.

• It is never boring: Jacob loves his job because no two days are the same. One day he is looking at a giant building, and the next day he might be looking at a manhole cover on the ground.

How did he get this job? Instead of going to university for three years straight away, Jacob is doing a degree apprenticeship. He started with a practice job (called an internship), and now the company pays for him to get his degree while he works there.