Project and Work Placement Scheme (PaWS)
One of the highlights of the College year is our PaWS week held in June, helping students to enhance their employability skills and confirm career aspirations. Students either choose from a wide range of projects, or spend a week shadowing and working with professionals in their future career areas.
Placements
Greenhead College operates one of the most extensive work placement schemes in the country, with over 700 students gaining first-hand experience of the world of work across the UK and abroad each year. Students can apply for College organised placements, or may arrange their own. Many students’ career aspirations have been confirmed following their work placement experience.
Projects
Every year around 500 of our students participate in over 50 different projects. Projects include workshops led by external experts and our own College staff and cover a variety of topics including management and finance, media, engineering, science, team building, law, sport, history and webpage design. Some projects result in students gaining nationally recognised qualifications such as Community Sports Leadership Award, Emergency First Aid and Deaf Awareness & Signing BSL 101.
Step Into..
As a result of the COVID pandemic, we successfully developed our ‘Step Into’ programme of live and bespoke webinars across the academic year. 139 webinars were attended in total, led by professionals from a wide range of industries, universities and apprenticeship providers. This allows all our students access to first-hand information about specific careers, degrees and employability skills and will continue to complement the opportunities available in PaWS week.
Step Into Feedback
“I learnt what an employer is looking for: self management, time management, having a thorough understanding of the course you are applying for and showing you have good skills such as communication, IT skills, using your
initiative and problem solving.”
– Step into Employability Skills in Engineering
“I found it really interesting as I got an insight to what I can do with law beyond university. I also learnt about other law relating jobs that I hadn’t even considered before the session.”
– Step into Law
“I learnt lots of information on how to start a career in the police and all the options and the benefits and drawbacks of each option. I think I got all the information I needed, it was very informative and well presented.”
– Step into the Police
Feedback from PaWS 2019
“The placement was an outstanding experience and it has fuelled my commitment to continue to pursue dentistry as a career. It has definitely made me aware of the importance of essential skills including communication, patience and dexterity and has given me an extremely valuable opportunity which will certainly help boost my application for dentistry next year.”
Nassim, AD Hewetts Dental Practice
“The placement gave me a much better understanding of the exact nature of being involved in a theatre company, with extremely welcoming and caring staff that treated us like colleagues rather than students. It has solidified my goal of working in the creative industries.”
Oran, Manchester Royal Exchange
“My week was everything I wanted it to be. It helped improve my employability skills and made me understand what it truly takes to become a lawyer.”
Annabel, Plexus Law
“The work placement was a valuable experience which challenged me and required me to use initiative. The group work gave me the opportunity to develop my teamwork and interpersonal skills. The large scale of the project we were given enabled me to demonstrate organisational skills and the ability to work to deadlines.”
Grace, BuroHappold Engineering
“I have learnt that medicine is not just about diagnosing and treating patients, it requires the strong empathy and communication to act in the patient’s best interests. I am now more aware of the mental and physical demands that accompany the lifestyle of a doctor.”
Ola, Sheffield Teaching Hospital
