How To Organise Your Day with A School
Sometimes you might have a school in mind, sometimes you even have contacts within that school. This makes the initial contact and conversation with the school very easy. Other times you would have no idea where to start (this was where I was the first time) and the task seems a bit more daunting. No fear! We’ve done this before…
Find a school
Local schools are always my first choice. The travel time is much shorter and it’s interesting for the students to finally learn what that business down the road really does. If you are offering work experience or apprenticeships, the closer you are to the school the better because now you have an audience of potential employees!
Enter your postcode and find a local school at: https://www.compare-school-performance.service.gov.uk/
Get in contact with the school
Once you have a school in mind, the best way to get in contact is via email. You may need to do a little sleuthing in order to get your email to land in the correct persons inbox. I recommend finding the school website and searching through staff lists. Keep your eye out for Head of Computer Science, IT Teacher, Business Studies etc as these will be your best chance of finding someone who can respond to your questions. Don’t worry if you can’t access a staff list or you don’t have time to trawl the website, you can absolutely send an email to the main contact address of the school (usually enquiries@schoolname.sch.uk or a variant) and have success. It just may take more time to reach someone who can help).
If you need inspiration on how to phrase your email or what to include in the initial email. Try something like below:
Good Morning <Name>,
My name is Tori and I work for a data analytics consultancy called Adatis. Several colleagues and I are very passionate about getting more women into fulfilling technology roles and what better place to start than at school?!
We would love to visit your students at <School Name> for a day filled with presentations, technology workshops and coding games to show them how great a career in technology can be. This day will be free of charge and we will be hosting workshops provided/inspired by Girls Code Too so for further information you can go to www.girlscodetoo.co.uk .
Please let us know if you are interested and we can schedule a phone call, so we can tell you more about our planned day.
Thanks!
Tori Tompkins
Don’t be offended if you don’t get a response. Often staff are very busy and aren’t able to respond yet, sometimes this is something they already have on their curriculum (which is a great thing!) or it’s something the just don’t have the capacity for yet. But please don’t give up here, most schools jump at the chance to have some awesome tech professionals teach their students what future career options they have. When you get a positive response, you can reach out for further discussion.
First discussion
It’s beneficial to both parties, you and the school, if the day is thoroughly organised and responsibilities are established. I recommend making a list of questions you think the school will have and a list of questions you have. At this point, it’s a really good idea to have a plan of the workshops you wish to host so you can tailor your questions (if you need inspiration visit our workshops page here).
Questions you may be asked are:
- How much will it cost?/ Is it free? – Yes yes yes it’s absolutely free!
- What will the day involve? – This is your opportunity to build excitement for the day by rattling off all the awesome sessions you have planned.
- How many students can you present to? What age group? – This is totally up to you. If you don’t know where to start, we started with a group of 30 year 8 girls which was a truly awesome and enthusiastic audience.
Questions you may want to ask could be:
- Do your students have access to (Kahoot | Micro:bits | Scratch | USB ports etc)? – It’s a really good idea to get a list of all the resources you will need for the sessions you’ll be covering. This way you can decide which ones the school will provide and which ones you will bring along.
- Can you provide us with a school timetable? – This is so you can schedule the day (and all your much-needed coffee breaks).
- Do we need DBS clearance? – Most of this time this will be a no, but it’s 100% worth a check.
- Will there be teaching assistance during the day? – This is always a nice idea especially if this is your first time to be able to have a teacher in the room with you during the day.
- Can we take pictures? Can we tweet about the day? – If you can tweet pictures throughout the day it’s a really good way to show people the awesome work you have achieved and inspire others to do the same. (We also love a shoutout @GirlsCodeTooUK #GirlsCodeToo so we can see the fun you are all having).
Now is the best time to organise a date too! You might not get it scheduled right away, schools have parents evening, school trips, exams to contend with but getting a date will give you something to pencil in and get started.
We hope now that you are really excited for your day and please let us know if you have any questions contact@girlscodetoo.co.uk
Tori Tompkins is a Data Analytics Consultant at Advancing Analytics. She is the Founder of Girls Code Too UK and is passionate about bringing more young girls into the tech industry. Before joining Advancing Analytics, she studied BSc Cybersecurity and Forensic Computing at the University of Portsmouth and previously worked at Ernst & Young, Hampshire Police High Tech Crime Unit and Data Consultancy, Adatis.
