Future Aspirations
Our Vision
At Holly Grove Primary Academy, we nurture confident, caring and ambitious learners who are proud of who they are and excited about who they can become. Through inspiring experiences, high expectations and a strong sense of community, we encourage every child to dream big, work hard and develop the skills, resilience and determination to thrive in an ever-changing world.
At Holly Grove Primary Academy, we are passionate about helping children develop ambitious aspirations for their future and understand the many opportunities available to them. Our annual Future Aspirations Week is a cornerstone of our personal development curriculum and takes place across the entire school, from Nursery through to Year 6.
Throughout the week, children meet and learn from professionals representing a wide range of industries, backgrounds and experiences, helping them to broaden their horizons, challenge stereotypes and make meaningful connections between their learning and the wider world.
The event has grown significantly each year, attracting an increasing number and variety of visitors who generously share their journeys and experiences with our pupils. Through these encounters, children develop confidence, ambition and a belief that their future possibilities are limitless.
Primary Futures Gold Award
This commitment to raising aspirations has been recognised nationally through Holly Grove achieving the Primary Futures Gold Award, the highest level of recognition from the Primary Futures Recognition Scheme, celebrating our sustained and outstanding work in inspiring children to think positively and ambitiously about their futures.
The Primary Futures Recognition Scheme, delivered by Inspiring the Future, is a national programme that celebrates schools for providing high-quality aspiration-raising experiences that help children understand the possibilities open to them in the future.
The scheme recognises schools that successfully connect learning with the wider world and provide meaningful opportunities for pupils to meet volunteers from a broad range of professions and backgrounds. Holly Grove Primary Academy was one of the first schools in the local area to achieve the prestigious Gold Award, recognising the school's commitment to broadening children's horizons and inspiring them to think ambitiously about their futures. This is highest level of recognition within the scheme, demonstrating a sustained and exemplary commitment to raising aspirations for all pupils.
We want our Children to:
- Understand that all types of jobs and roles have value
- Feel encouraged to explore their strengths and interests
- Challenge stereotypes and learn that anyone can pursue any career, regardless of background or gender.
We link careers within our curriculum. Connecting children's learning to real-world skills and professions. Teachers will link at careers - maths activities linking to engineering, construction etc Science lessons about animals to veterinary medicine etc. Our Teachers find ways to relate classroom topics to different careers.
We use Real Life Models by inviting a range of various professions to speak to our children. We also sign up to online presentations by different professionals which also include live Q and A sessions. Thus bringing the world of work into the classroom, showing children many possibilities for their futures.
We engage families and our local community to come into school during Future Aspirations week and share their work journeys and answer questions about decisions they have made in their careers. We also encourage parents and families to share their own career paths with their children during this week at home to show the children there are many different opportunities out there for them.
We challenge stereotypes around gender, race and social background. By making sure our visitors represent the diversity of our community and broader society. We aim to provide the children with positive examples of people from all backgrounds succeeding in various careers.
Our Key Objective with our Future Aspirations learning:
- Raising Aspirations - we aim to help our children "reach for the stars" and understand that their future is full of possibilities
- Embedding Career learning naturally - allowing children to understand the relevance of learning to the real world.
- Challenging Bias and Celebrating Diversity - we want our children to aspire to any career, regardless of gender, background or ethnicity.
- Building Good Community Relations - by inviting the local community and businesses into school
Parents
We welcome and value the involvement of parents and families in our Future Aspirations work. If you are a parent or a family member who would like to participate in our Future Aspirations work please contact the school office.
