On Thursday 3^rd November 2022, two groups of Year 8 students from OIAMFS took part in the Words for Work programme by the National Literacy Trust, which was hosted at the headquarters of Provident Financial Group in Bradford centre.

Activities were themed around the different types of communication used within a professional working environment.

Following the introductory ‘getting to know you’ task, students were taken on an office tour and participated in speed networking.

As they walked the building students were tasked with identifying and writing down the different types of written and verbal communication, they saw and heard, as they visited departments such as finance, credit, legal, and the contact centre. Here, they received a presentation explaining what the department did, what communication methods they used, and the skills required to get a job in their team. The tour was rounded off with the opportunity to sit in the Directors boardroom!

After the break, student took part in a ‘communication and literacy skills’ session. They had to prepare a list of questions for a live Q&A interview with a colleague from each department they had just visited. This meant they had to glean from their ‘Words for Work word bank’ and use workplace active verbs and vocabulary.

At the close of the morning and afternoon sessions Anisah and Abdulaziz (AM), and Shuhan and Shamila (PM) stood up and gave a special heart-warming thank you to colleagues from the National Literacy Trust and Provident Financial Group for organising the day.

Helen Curtis, National Literacy Trust: “It is so important for students to be given opportunities to have meaningful encounters with positive working role models and build knowledge of future workplaces available to them. It was wonderful to see the students demonstrating their communication skills and in their interactions with the business volunteers, the students were developing confidence and key literacy skills”.

Cathy Prior, Provident Financial Group: “It was an honour and a pleasure to welcome two classes of young people from OIAMFS to our offices today to introduce them to the various roles they might aspire to either in our business or elsewhere. They came as part of the National Literacy Trust’s Words for Work programme, which gives young people the communication skills they need for the world of work. They listened with interest to the volunteers as they spoke about their various roles and then grilled us with really well-thought-out questions about what it was like to work here and what skills they would need. Hopefully we have inspired them to consider a role in the financial sector when they leave school”.

Anisah: “I found today interesting, it’s made me think more about doing something like this (finance) in the future”.

Lucas: “I didn’t realise there were so many (career) options working in an office like this”.

Ibrahim: “I enjoyed today. It was nice to get out of school and look at what career options we can do after we leave”. 

Mark Hughes, OIAMFS Trust Member, “A very special thank you to our friends at the Provident Financial Group. They have been faithful in supporting our community-based Charity and secondary school for over a decade. Equally, we are hugely grateful to the National Literacy Trust, in particular Helen and Charlie, for their commitment to instil in our students a passion for literacy and oracy to prepare them to thrive in modern day Britain!”.

Thank you to all our students and staff, we are incredibly proud of you.

Thank you to all the volunteers from Provident Financial Group, which included:

• Am session: Kirsty Jones, Andrew Hatfield, Jamie Barber, Carole King, Mary Preston, Karl Ashford, Cathy Prior.
• Pm session: Tanzeela Nassir, Martin Green, Sharon Orr, Cathy Prior, Naseem Coates, Fatima Begum, Chetna Chaun.