Treviglas Academy Year 8s take on Newquay solar firm’s customer brief

A customer wants solar panels. Somebody has to work out how much energy they use, somebody has to survey the property, somebody has to design the system and somebody has to sell it. At Treviglas Academy, all four jobs went to Year 8.

Treviglas Academy teamed up with Naked Solar, a renewable energy company based in Newquay, to run the session as part of the school’s Year 8 Growth Sector Day. Students worked through five different sector-focused activities across the day, and the solar one put them inside a working business.

Four departments, one customer

Students were introduced to Cornwall’s renewable energy sector, then split into teams. Each team took on one of four business functions:

• Energy assessment
• Design
• Surveying
• Sales

Every team completed a different part of the challenge. Then they had to bring the work together to answer a customer brief.

The idea was to show how departments in a business depend on one another, while giving students practice in communication, collaboration, problem-solving and decision-making. So they were doing parts of the work itself, and finding out which skills each role needs along the way.

How it came about

The partnership started with a conversation between Laura Ford, Careers Leader at Treviglas, and Jacob from Naked Solar at a Careers Hub Careers Summit. They talked about how schools and employers could put the principles of the Modern Work Experience Benchmarks into practice. The session was built from there.

Laura said: “We want our careers programme to provide meaningful experiences of work rather than simply a series of employer encounters. Working with employers allows us to combine our understanding of young people and learning with their expertise of industry and the workplace.

“Working with Jacob ensured that students were given accurate labour market information about renewable energy and could understand why it is an important and growing sector in Cornwall. The session also allowed students to experience different roles within a company and develop the skills needed across different departments before bringing their work together as a team to meet a customer’s expectations.”

What the students said afterwards

Students recorded their reflections and feedback on the day using Unifrog. Following the Growth Sector Day:

• 95% of students reported that they had a better understanding of Cornwall’s growth sectors
• 87% of students reported that they could explain the skills employers are looking for

Through Unifrog, students can also look back at the sectors and roles they explored, identify the employability skills they showed, pick out areas to work on and set actions for further research into careers and progression pathways.

The school says the learning will be revisited through the academic year in its tutor careers programme, where students will use the Careers Hub Cornwall Industries Guide to explore labour market information, growth sectors, occupations and progression opportunities.

A small firm and a whole year group

For Naked Solar, the day was a way to reach every Year 8 student at once, without building a new programme from scratch each time it works with a school.

Jacob said: “We had an excellent day with the Year 8 students at Treviglas, and their engagement was brilliant throughout. Being able to reach an entire year group in a single day is something we really value as a local employer.

“As an SME, finding the time to plan sessions like this can be tricky. Laura made it much easier by being in touch months in advance with the schedule of careers activities and by being on hand to answer my questions while I was putting the resources together for the Growth Sector Day.

“We planned it carefully around the new benchmarks, with group activities encouraging teamwork and real-life examples simulating the kind of problem-solving needed throughout the renewables sector.”

The sessions developed with Naked Solar can now be refined and potentially shared with other schools, which would cut the planning time for employers who want to get involved. The school describes it as a structured alternative to asking businesses for more traditional work placements, and one that works for large numbers of young people.

Jacob added: “This was the first of what will hopefully be many school partnerships!”