Good resources to help early secondary child think about careers

[pisspants]

Hi there, dd13 is finishing yr8 and will be starting a new school in Sept due to the school system here. Almost straight away she will have decide gcse options etc. We have talked about a few careers she may be interested in but one would be incredibly hard to achieve (judge) and the other I think she would love and would offer a good lifestyle but she feels would be settling a bit (PE teacher).
I have drifted and was never clear about what I wanted to do. Family and friends who were clearer in their direction from teens have been much more successful in their careers and so I was hoping we could find something she could focus in on.
I know her school will do careers sessions with her but I found as a child they only focussed on obvious careers not the less well known types of job.
So I was wondering if anyone knows of any good resources that you can match skills and interests with careers that are aimed at a younger teen?

shameless bump

Personally at that age I only chatted with mine about careers in a fun way. Options were chosen based on what subjects they were good at and most importantly enjoyed doing.

At 13 whatever they thought they would like to do as a career was completely different to how they felt at 16 so it’s not always a good idea to steer them on a set path.

I agree - subjects that they enjoy and/or are good at, that hopefully cover a decent range. So some science, arts, humanities and a MFL.

You may find her actual choices are fairly limited anyway as some schools set certain subjects as compulsory, or at least insist on specific types of subject.

I had vast different ideas what I wanted to do for a job at 13, 15 and 17.

I would go for a good mix of classic subjects, maths, English, language, science and at least one humanities. Most schools will cover these as compulsory anyway so any additional subject choosing may only be available for a small handful of numbers.

A year 8 child does not need to think about careers and lacks the life experience and careers knowledge to do so. Stop the madness! She should gcses that she enjoys, will get good grades in and that aren't a major stumbling block to a levels. The way they manage gcses at school anyway, they insist you do certain subjects so it would be hard to end up with a bunch of duff subjects.

Well ... there are innumerable choices between judge and PE teacher - it’s really not one or the other!

Are you in a part of the world where Judge is a separate profession? Because in England one has to be a successful lawyer first. And there’s absolutely no reason, at this stage, why your daughter should not aspire to becoming a solicitor or barrister. (Academically anyway - they can be quite bruising in practice!)

Shouldn’t she be aiming to get to the best university possible? That is - putting a deal of effort into her schoolwork and developing strong outside interests that will help with critical thinking skills, teamwork, and resilience.

(If she wanted to be a ballet dancer or a concert pianist it might be different ...)

My almost 14 year old picked her GCSEs a few months ago - she has her compulsory ones and then she picked ones she enjoyed and ones she was good at. So she's doing sciences, a language, a humanities and a tech/design one. She has no real idea career wise but she enjoys the subjects she picked. Her careers teachers were helpful, her biggest problem was whittling the subjects down tbh.

Sorry - I completely omitted to address your actual question!

I don’t know about resources aimed at teens - I gather people still use ‘What Colour Is Your Parachute’ to narrow down their best career options. Perhaps there’s one intended for teens.

But I doubt it would be much use until she’s had some practical experience of work! Holiday jobs, volunteering, whatever. In the meantime it’s important that she keeps on with strong academic subjects for as long as possible. Not pseudo-vocational subjects which have little bearing on actual university study. (So eg English, Maths, History, not Law at GCSE/A’Level.)