PUPILS at a Basingstoke school were given an insight into the world of employment during a careers event held last week.

Around 360 pupils from St Mary’s Church of England Junior School, in Belle Vue Road, Old Basing took part in a careers event.

The school arranges a careers week every two years and this is the third event to take place with the aim of encouraging pupils to link what they are learning at school to help them with their further education and careers.

A number of representatives from a range of organisations attended the event including a Basingstoke firefighter, someone from The AA and a lawyer from Universal Pictures, who spoke to the children.

A lecturer from the University of Winchester spoke about the options of university-based training.

Children took part in a number of additional activities including writing their own CV’s and researching careers of their choice.

Pupils from Year 3 set up their own businesses during the week and Year 5 pupils had to produce a marketing campaign for a range of Greek pots they had made in their history class.

Deputy headteacher Gemma Lillywhite told The Gazette: “It was a great success and we had a lot of visitors in. All the children enjoyed it. The reason we do this is to encourage children to self-manage and to think about the links and how it is going to help them in the next step of their education and help them to make informed choices.”

Year 3 pupil Edie Sangway added: “I enjoyed meeting the visitors and the things they brought in to show us, I especially liked hearing from the scientist.

“When I am older I would like to be a beauty therapist and to do this I need to work hard in maths, art and english.”