Unifrog for Primary: Careers lesson pack FAQs

****** Unifrog for primary schools is live and ready for you to use ******  

If you'd like to book a demo, request one here and we’ll set up a meeting with you, or email our Primary School Partnerships Managers, Kai (kai@unifrog.org), or Thaïs (thais@unifrog.org), or call us on +4420 3372 5991.
 

In this guide we answer your FAQs about the Careers lesson pack for primary schools.

In a nutshell - what is the Careers lesson pack for primary schools?

42 fun lessons that cover all of the CDI learning aims and the PSHE Association objectives for careers. The spiral curriculum is:

• Plug-and-play: Easy to deliver with minimal prep time.
   
• Engaging: Interactive tasks empower children to become active learners.
   
• Whole-school: Resources for Early Years, Key Stage 1, and Key Stage 2.

The Career Development Institute (CDI) is the UK's professional body for career development.

 

How does the Careers lesson pack fit with the rest of Unifrog for primary schools?

If you subscribe to Unifrog as a primary school, you get five main things. Each of these work together to create a one-stop-shop for Careers and PSHE for primary schools:

• Careers lesson pack
  Engaging, plug-and-play lessons that make up a comprehensive spiral careers curriculum for primary school.
   
• PSHE lesson pack
  Plug-and-play, comprehensive spiral PSHE curriculum from Reception upwards.
   
• Interactions tool
  Centralised recording of all careers and PSHE activities (lessons, assemblies, school trips), as well as internal and external reporting.
   
• Careers library
  Interactive profiles of career sectors, filterable by school subject, showing children the full range of exciting careers available to them, and challenging stereotypes to do with gender and socio-economic background.
   
• Parent accounts
  Parents have their own accounts for Unifrog. They can see the interactions added for their children, and browse the Careers library.

What exactly is in the Careers lesson pack?

42 lessons that cover all CDI learning aims and PSHE Association objectives for careers:

• For Early Years
  • A story-based lesson PowerPoint for each CDI learning area, designed for 15 minute delivery.
  • Optional printable stories and character illustrations.
  • Continuous provision recommendations for each CDI learning area.
• For Key Stages 1 and 2
  • A lesson PowerPoint for each CDI learning area for each year group, designed for 30 minute delivery.
  • An optional accompanying worksheet for each lesson.

Want to see what the lessons are like? Here are some samples you can download:

• Reception lesson PowerPoint
• Reception optional printable characters
• Year 1 lesson PowerPoint
• Year 1 optional printable worksheet
• Year 5 lesson PowerPoint
• Year 5 optional printable worksheet

How is the Careers lesson pack structured?

The Pack uses a spiral curriculum model, meaning that, year-on-year, children build on knowledge and skills relating to each CDI learning area. Here’s a screenshot showing an extract of the careers education spiral curriculum. Each lesson’s title is hyperlinked to its resource profile on the Unifrog platform:

The lessons are grouped into three age groups: Early Years, 5-7, and 7-11, covering the CDI learning aims for each group. By teaching just six careers education lessons per academic year (e.g. one per half term) and implementing our continuous provision recommendations, you can cover all primary CDI learning aims. 

Lessons for children in Early Years are mapped to Early learning goals and lessons for children aged 5-11 are also mapped to the PSHE Association objectives for careers. 

We’ve suggested which lessons to deliver to each year group, but you can order the lessons as you like. We provide a blank calendar for you to create your own PSHE and careers programme, combining lessons from our Careers Lesson Pack and PSHE Lesson Pack:

Is primary school too early for careers education?

A growing body of research suggests that children begin forming ideas around careers at a very early age. According to Gottfredon’s theory of circumscription and compromise:

• At age 6-8, children grasp the concept of a set of behaviours belonging to each gender, and begin to see jobs and future pathways as gendered. 
   
• From age 9, children understand their social value is based on social class and intelligence. They abandon fantasy careers and become more aware of barriers to future pathways. 

Once these barriers have been established, they’re difficult to break. That’s why we want to broaden horizons and raise aspirations through engaging careers education lessons throughout primary school.

How can we be sure the Pack meets the CDI learning aims and PSHE Association objectives for careers?

• Designed by education and careers professionals
  Unifrog’s Primary Teaching Resources Creator (ten years of primary teaching experience) and Careers Guidance Specialist (level 7 qualified careers adviser) have collaborated to produce a spiral curriculum rooted in the learning aims and objectives. 
   
• Written from the ground up
  We’ve made every lesson from scratch, taking care to research CDI learning areas and PSHE guidelines for each topic before constructing the lesson.
   
• Quality assured
  Each lesson has been quality assured by Unifrog’s Teaching Resources Team. We’ve also received feedback from a range of experienced primary teachers and careers specialists.
   
• Exhaustive documentation
  Tabs on the Careers Lesson Pack spreadsheet show:
  • Which CDI learning aims are met by which lessons
  • Which PSHE Association careers objectives are met by which lessons
  • Which Early Learning Goals are linked to which lessons 

As an example, here’s a screenshot showing a small section of the PSHE Association objectives, and which lessons in the Pack meet them:

Are the lessons in the Careers lesson pack really plug-and-play?

Yes! While all resources are fully editable, we’ve made it as easy as possible for you to simply open our PowerPoints and teach: 

• Computer access not necessary
  Children can complete the activities through discussion or role play, in exercise books, or on paper. 
   
• Optional printable worksheets
  Suggested printing is always kept to a minimum. 
   
• Clearly explained activities on the slides
  There’s no need to refer to accompanying notes or lesson plans to understand how to deliver an activity. 

How have you made sure the lessons are engaging?

We know children ‘switch off’ when lessons are too passive. We’ve made our lessons engaging by:

• Grounding new concepts to reality
  This might involve children reflecting on a case study, taking part in a role play, or giving advice to a fictional character in a scenario.
• Story-based learning
  Careers-themed stories are used to help children learn about complex concepts. When a lesson features a story, it’s also provided as a printable Word document, accompanied by illustrations.
• Bespoke videos
  Some lessons contain video clips, allowing children to hear directly from professionals in different sectors, explore how organisations work, and deepen their understanding of careers-related concepts.
• Challenge and pace
  The lessons have clearly defined objectives and tightly timed activities. We provide additional challenge tasks to encourage children to think deeply about the topic area.

How does the pack support children with SEND?

Every lesson has an optional, printable, and editable worksheet, linked to the activity we think is likely to be most challenging, providing extra scaffolding.

The worksheets vary depending on lesson content, but typically include: 

• drawing or design tasks
• prompts for role play activities
• sentence starters
• multiple choice questions
• simplified case studies with visual prompts 

The worksheets are fully editable, allowing you to tailor the content or formatting to suit the needs of the children in your class.

Whilst we understand that support will need to be personalised for the individual needs of children at your school, we provide some general suggestions for additional support on the first slide of each lesson PowerPoint.

How does the Careers lesson pack deal with assessment?

We know that meaningful and robust assessment is a key priority for schools. 

We support you to assess the impact of our careers lessons in four main ways:

• Starter tasks
  Assess children’s prior knowledge of topics and retrieval of concepts covered in previous careers education lessons.
• Plenary tasks
  Allow children to apply, evaluate, or reflect upon what they’ve learned.
• Tailored ipsative assessment 
  Assess children’s knowledge, attitudes, and beliefs at the beginning of a topic through key words, sentences, or drawings. These can then be revisited at the end of the topic, with children adding new information, ideas, or attitudes in a second colour to demonstrate progress.
• Editable mind map and draw and write templates
  Editable versions of the ipsative assessments are also available if you would like to adapt them for your own class.

• Reflection slides
  Check understanding of key concepts, and evidence how careers education has affected children’s attitudes and behaviours. These can be completed after each lesson, or series of lessons. Reflections can be verbal, or you may ask children to write reflections in a different colour to highlight where assessment is taking place in their work.

   

How do we access the resources? 

When you have a Unifrog for primary subscription, the Careers lesson pack appears for all teachers on the teacher side of Unifrog, in the Resources library, alongside our PSHE lesson pack.

You can access both lesson packs:

• As online Google Sheets
• As downloadable Excel spreadsheets
• By searching the Resources library interface (by keyword, CDI learning area, age, skills, etc.)

Who can I share Unifrog teaching resources with?

You can share the resources with any colleagues at your school (including ones without a Unifrog account), but you cannot share all or part of the Careers lesson pack with people outside your school, or upload all or part of it to public shared drives or forums (e.g. Facebook groups).

How can I find out more?

If you'd like to book a demo, request one here and we’ll set up a meeting with you, or email our Primary School Partnerships Managers, Kai (kai@unifrog.org), or Thaïs (thais@unifrog.org), or call us on +4420 3372 5991.

Find out more about our PSHE lesson pack here.