Interactive workshop for primary school children
This talk and workshop for Y5-6 pupils has been designed, refined and improved over the past few years.
A bit of background
I’ve been running workshops and talks in primary schools for 6 years as a way to encourage younger people to consider work as a project or delivery manager, or roles in user centred design in general.
I’ve tried and trialled a few different approaches and the following is the thing that has worked best for me; talking for 10-15 minutes, followed by 30-40 minutes for an activity.
These are, genuinely, some of the best days of my year. I hope this provides some help, support and encouragement to give it a go yourself. If you have any questions, please do get in contact.
You’ll see in the slides that I only reference being a ‘project manager’. I think it’s far too complicated referencing project manager and/or delivery manager for this audience.
Download the resources
An example of the slides I use
Running the session
I’ve found that classroom sessions can vary in length, anywhere from 45 to 60 minutes. This session is designed to accommodate things easily by giving more or less time to the both the activity.
I’m yet to visit a school that doesn’t have a screen; they’re a staple part of teaching these days. I email the slides to the school/teacher a few days in advance, and ask for them to be on screen before I join the class.
It’s worth saying that this session is designed to work just as well should there by no screen available or some tech malfunction. The slides are a reference point, but not the thing.
The talking part (about 10 minutes)
The following format and flow is what I’ve found works best for me.
I introduce myself to the class, say hello and thank them for letting me join them (slide 1)
A game of guess my job using yes/no questions is a nice, good, fun way of getting the pupils involved right at the very start (slide 2)
A brief job history; it’s lighthearted as my first job was washing cars (slide 3)
A selection of logos of companies I’ve worked with/for. I ask the pupils if they recognise any; another way to get the children talking. I choose logos that pupils will likely know (slide 4)
I’ve travelled a bit over the years for work, so I choose a few photos and ask the pupils if they can guess where they were taken (slides 5-7)
A photo of my office at home, to make it clear that most of the time I’m happily sat at my desk (slide 8)
I wanted to visualise and share three simple things I do most days; listening, planning and sharing (slide 9)
I talk about the characteristics that I think good delivery people show in a slide called ‘You could easily be a project manager if you…’ (slide 10)
Last thing is I share a few bits of advice from my younger self (slide 11)
The doing part (30-40 minutes)
I’ve recently started using this spaghetti tower building task to recreate teamwork, some elements of project management and clients being, well, clients.
I ask the class to get into groups of 4-6 people (slide 13)
Next, I ask each group to choose a project manager. If there’s more than one person in a group, or no-one, then I pick someone (slide 14)
Then I talk through the rules of the challenge (slide 15):
Only the Project Manager can ask the client (me) questions
The rest of the group are Engineering Builder
Only Engineering Builders can build using the spaghetti
You have about 20 minutes
Now I set the challenge; build the tallest freestanding structure possible (slide 16)
I give the groups a couple minutes to think of questions before asking the project managers to come to the front to collect their supplies; 50 strands of spaghetti and about 1 metre of masking tape.
The challenge and timer starts. I walk round the groups, checking in asking if there are any questions.
After a few minutes I get the class’ attention and apologise ; ‘I’m really sorry, I’ve just remembered I forgot to mention something - can all the project managers come back to me’.
I let the project managers know that I’d like the tower to hold a marshmallow right at the top and I’ll measure from the desk to the marshmallow, before opening a bag and letting them take one back to their groups
Once the time’s up I go round the groups using a tape measure. I ask each group to think of a name and then ask the teacher to write the group name on the whiteboard.
The questions part (5 minutes)
I always make sure I finish at least 5 minutes before the end of the sessions so that pupils can ask me anything (slide 17). There has been some brilliant questions over the years:
Is your job boring?
How much do you earn?
Which country do you want to travel to work in next?
Preparation and costs
I create a fresh slide deck for each school and email this across in advance. It takes 30 minutes to get the spaghetti counted, tape and sweets together.
It costs about £5 per class:
1 pack of spaghetti (enough for 5-7 groups, plus spare) - about 50p
1 roll of paper masking tape - about £1
Small plastic bags (for decanting the teams’ spaghetti into) - about 50p
1 bag of marshmallows (enough for 20 groups) - about £1
Bag(s) of individually wrapped sweets - usually £2-3 (optional)
You could do this for about £2 by not including the marshmallows or sweets. It’d just need another ‘client’ thing like ‘it has to hold a small sheet of paper’
Best to avoid chocolate and nuts. I try to include halal sweets.
You’ll need a tape measure too and you usually can pick these up for £1.
What teachers say
"Jon has worked with us for the last four years supporting us with our annual 'Careers Week.' His well thought out, carefully planned and fun presentations take the children on an awe- inspiring journey through the world of business. I'm pretty sure we'll be seeing some future entrepreneurs in the future! A true gem!"
Michelle Hutchinson
Assistant Headteacher, E-ACT Pathways Academy
Feedback
If you use the slides, please let me know - I’d love to hear how you get on.
If you have any feedback, or if you’re a teacher and would like me to run this in your school, get in touch - jon@calm.delivery