§1. A t our last parents’ evening, the head teacher thought it would be a good idea for parents to come in a couple of hours earlier. The idea was for the students to meet parents with different jobs, learn about them and maybe ask some questions. If the students found out about jobs from people who did them, it would help them make their own decisions in the future.

§2. My mum didn’t want to do it at first. She’s a librarian and she thought that nobody would come and talk to her because they would think it was a boring job. She decided to come in the end, and many of my friends talked to her. Later they told me it made them think about how useful her work was. She advises all members of the community who visit the library. Some of my friends have started thinking about becoming librarians now!

§3. My best friend really likes computers and spent time talking to an app designer  — she’d like to design apps herself. But she was surprised by how much more there is to the job than just being creative. The designer has to work as part of a team. He gets feedback from colleagues at each stage in the project and has to change things. Sometimes he has to start all over again. My friend has started thinking about other jobs now!

§4 I talked to a lab assistant. When she was describing her work, it was difficult for me to concentrate and she could see that. So she started talking about other things instead: her sons, food, TV and stuff. She smiled and said she could see I wasn’t very interested in her job. I felt a bit bad and said I was sorry. So she asked me to come to her work and find out more about it. “Give it a chance!” she said.

§5. So, a few days later, I did. She showed me one way her research team use computers to develop medicine. It was hard to follow what she was saying. But then she asked me to sit in front of the computer and try making my own medicine! To me, it made a big difference when I had a go myself. Maybe I would like to do that as a job one day. But if she hadn’t introduced me to it, I never would have thought about it.