This document provides information and guidance about making option choice decisions for secondary school subjects. It discusses: - Considering where to get help/support when making option choices, such as parents, teachers, careers advisors. - Developing decision-making skills like lateral thinking to look at choices from different perspectives. - A quiz to test lateral thinking skills around puzzles involving coins, boxes, lifts, and throwing balls. - Exploring past and present jobs to investigate career opportunities and how work has changed over time. The goal is to help students prepare properly for choosing suitable and relevant subjects.

1. Lesson 3 PSHE
Careers Education

2. Learning Intentions
• You are going to consider where you can get help /
support / information from when making option
choice decisions
• Make you think about thinking…help your ability to
make decisions
• Further explore ‘JOBS’ from the past and present

3. So far….
• We have considered the options process
• We have thought about the importance of careers education in relation to
choosing your curricular subjects
• We have thought about how well we are getting on in each of our subjects this
session
• We have identified the subjects we are good at
• We have identified links between activities and careers
• We have identified what we like
• We have linked our interests and qualities to careers
• We have found out how to use the planITplus website

4. Help and Advice
• Consider the following scenario
• After applying for a job as a shop assistant in a
shop in town, you have been asked to attend an
interview.
• In your group, write down all the things you
should consider to help you prepare, as well as
all the people you would get advice from

5. • What time you need to be there at
• How you are going to get there
• What you are going to wear
• What kind of questions you might be asked and
what your answers would be
• Help from
» Parents/carers
» Friends
» Friends of parents…neighbours
» Relatives
» Teachers
Help and Advice….some ideas

6. Now
• In your group, write down all the things
you should consider, that would help you
prepare to make your option choices.
• Who you would ask for help ?
• Who would you get advice from ?

7. I should…
• Think about what I like and what I’m good at
• Make sure I know about the option process and its different stages
• Ask particular teachers for subject advice if I have any queries
• Make an appointment to meet the school connexions advisor ask
your pupil support teacher
• Speak to others about my choices and listen to and consider their
advice
» Others being parents/teachers/careers officer/friends/relatives

8. • By thinking about all of these things and
preparing properly….you should be in a
good position to choose suitable and
relevant S3 subjects

9. Making Decisions
• What kind of skills do you need ?

10. Lateral Thinking…may help when making decisions
• Lateral thinking, is the ability to think creatively, or
"outside the box" as it is sometimes referred to in
business, to use your inspiration and imagination to
solve problems by looking at them from unexpected
perspectives. Lateral thinking involves discarding the
obvious, leaving behind traditional modes of thought,
and throwing away preconceptions.
• It's very important in careers such as advertising,
marketing, the media and art and design where you
may get questions in the selection process along the
lines of "Write down one hundred ways to use a
brick/paperclip", but it can also be of value in the job
hunting process itself.

11. Lateral Thinking Quiz
• The following questions will test your
ability to think laterally. If you get more
than 50% of these right you're certainly
strong on your lateral thinking skills (or
maybe you're just good at quizzes!)

12. A graduate applying for pilot training with a
major airline was asked what he would do if,
after a long-haul flight to Sydney, he met the
captain wearing a dress in the hotel bar. What
would you do?
• Offer to buy her a drink! The captain was
of course a woman. Many airlines are now
hot on equal opportunities and a
candidate who had difficulty envisaging
that an airline captain might be female
would not go very far!

13. What can you hold
in your right hand,
but not in your left?
• Your left hand, forearm or elbow.

14. If you have two coins totaling 11p, and one of the coins is not a penny,
what are the two coins?
• 10p and 1p - the other coin can be a
penny!

15. What can you put in a wooden box that would make it lighter? The more of
them you put in the lighter it becomes, yet the box stays empty.
• Holes

16. A woman lives on the tenth floor of a block of flats. Every morning she takes the lift down
to the ground floor and goes to work. In the evening, she gets into the lift, and, if there is
someone else in the lift she goes back to her floor directly. Otherwise, she goes to the
eighth floor and walks up two flights of stairs to her flat. How do you explain this?
• The woman is of small stature and
couldn't reach the upper lift buttons.

17. How can you throw a ball as hard as you can, and make it stop and
return to you, without hitting anything and with nothing attached to it?
• Go outside and throw it upwards.

18. Past and Present Jobs…what does
it all mean?
• Play the following game to investigate jobs from the past and
present
• modern and ancient jobs