This year, the S3 students of CedarBridge Academy have been chosen to pilot Bermuda’s first City & Guilds’ College and Career class. The curriculum includes understanding and completion of job applications, interview skills, college and university research along with a significant portfolio requirement.

Principal Mrs Kalmar Richards is ecstatic about the College & Career class, and agrees that it’s a “groundbreaking opportunity” that will benefit the S3 ‘Students of Excellence’ and most certainly prepare them for the working world. She proudly boasts that the City & Guilds courses are recognised internationally and anyone who earns that certificate will have met rigorous requirements and will be tremendous candidates for any organisation.

After taking the Rough Community College Quiz, students must research their top five career choices, identify job vacancies, define the required skills for the position they are applying for and demonstrate proof that they have those skills. In addition, the S3 students learn ‘interview tips’ guaranteed to get you hired, effective skills every employee needs, as well as qualities and attitudes employers are looking for in the workplace.

Students in the careers pathways programmes will be matched up with employment opportunities according to their interests and in January 2014, once a week they will have an opportunity to go and experience firsthand what it’s like to be an employee in their field. S3 students who are in the AS (Advanced Level Math or English) class will carry out the ‘college track’ segment of the programme where they can investigate colleges and universities they are most likely to attend.

One City & Guild’s student, Germaine Darrell, S3 stated, “I feel that the course is beneficial to me because it allows me to have an advantage of choosing my career while still being in high school, therefore I wouldn’t have to struggle later on.”

Seth Taylor, another S3 Prefect, also shared, “The experience has given me the chance to get exposure and develop things I am interested in. I’m glad that they chose our S3 year level to be the pilots of the course. Fortunately, this class has given me the opportunity to discover some colleges I would not have known about before.

Look out Bermuda, I mean, look out world! Here comes the global leaders of the future, successful S3 students of CedarBridge Academy.