On Wednesday 7 October, Year 11 spent the day in their houses for a ‘Living in the Wider World’ PSHE day. The sessions covered many topics, and provided us with useful information for planning our futures.
Period 1 was a session on identifying values, and learning to prioritise what is important to you as an individual. We were given the list of values, and asked to prioritise them in a Diamond 9, based on our own personal opinion. The values were as follows:
- Building sense of community
- Being healthy
- Protecting the environment
- Fostering self-acceptance
- Creating wealth
- Having high social status
- Being award-winning
- Having positive and healthy relationships
- Pursuing knowledge or personal development
Do you know immediately how you personally would order these?
The values can be split into two categories: intrinsic and extrinsic. Intrinsic values are important in their own right; these help people to grow or connect to others. Extrinsic values are those we think will help us get something else, and are often based on others expectations. It was explained to us that our order of these values and whether our priorities are intrinsic or extrinsic, not only affect how we live life day-to-day, in the way of consumer choices and relationship choices, but also may influence our decision when it comes to finding jobs, and working for a company that has values which align to yours.
In the second session of the day we built on this, discussing how our values and priorities also affect our wellbeing and motivation, applying it to the school environment, which we could all easily relate to, as well as a working environment, looking at real life class studies. The third session entailed learning an essential life skill: understanding a pay slip. We looked at the different parts, where the money is coming from, and where it goes. We then proceeded to discuss all the different things you have to pay for on a monthly basis as an adult, and talked about budgeting and managing your money. Needless to say there were a lot of questions and disappointments about the difference between your gross and net wages, and then how much you actually have to spend after paying for all those essentials bits, like mortgage, utility bills, food, petrol and so on.
In Period 4, we discovered more about A Levels through a PowerPoint jam-packed with information from Mrs Ellis, the Head of Sixth Form. She explained how A Levels work here at Wycombe High, the requirements for different A Levels based on GCSE results, and some advice on how we should approach the situation. We also got the chance to watch introduction videos from Classics, Politics, Computer Science and Psychology – new subjects that are offered at A Level.
Period 5 was a self study session where we looked through PowerPoints about the National Careers Service and Apprenticeships, informing us about all the options that are available to us after school, should we not want to go to University. All in all, the day was very helpful in making Year 11 feel more control of their future and the important decisions we will have to make in the not so far future.
