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Women In Aviation Event

Activity that has taken place

On Friday 8th March, we delivered a half day workshop to 6 schools in Tees Valley focussing on female students from Years 9 & 10 looking at Careers in Aviation. This event was linked to National Careers Week, Women in Aviation and International Women’s Day. We targeted schools who were not fully achieving Benchmark 6 and based in areas of deprivation to raise aspirations and awareness of the varied range of jobs linked to the industry.

We held two sessions, one in the morning and one in the afternoon , 3 schools attended each session with 10 students from each school.

During the event the students took part in 4 activities throughout including:

  • Landside Tour of the Airport – The students were taken on the tour from a Duty Manager – Ellie, finding out about what job roles are linked to the Airport as well as following a customer journey from them entering the airport such as Check-In, Security, Departures/Arrivals, Catering. The students also had the chance to visit the museum based in the airport about the history of the airport.
  • Careers Pathways Talk, Teesside University Aviation Academy, Bev Boden – the students visited the academy and received a talk about the range of opportunities available to them when planning their future pathways such as college courses, training providers, apprenticeships, university to employment. The students were also very lucky to have a guest speaker, Vicky Allport, who is a Long Haul Cabin Crew staff member for British Airways. She talked about her career journey and a “Day in the Life of” a cabin crew member and how she is allocated her flights.
  • Job Matching Activities – the students took part in activities looking at the different job roles available at Teesside International Airport, identifying job roles, subjects and qualifications needed, skills required and average salaries.
  • Q & A Sessions with Airport Staff – students got the opportunity to hear from female staff based at the Airport that have different job roles, hearing about their varied career pathways and how they have the job they are doing currently. They also talked about the skills in their job roles and the tasks they carry out. Students could then ask questions to find out more. The staff were in roles such as: Duty Manager, Firefighter, Finance Officer, Border Force.

The second part of the Women in Aviation event took the students to Simfly in Darlington, during the visit the students completed some ice breaker challenges looking at teamwork and communication. The students then completed a carousel of role play activities having hands-on experience in job roles such as Travel Agent, Check-In, Security, Cabin Crew as well as reversing the role to the customer too. Students had a range of scenarios to work through at each station such as an awkward customer, issues at check-in (liquids, cases overweight, flights delayed), Security students had to hide a battery and the security guard had to use the scanner to try and locate it, cabin crew (pre flight briefing, refreshment service, emergency situation. Finally, the students got to be a co-pilot and sit in the cockpit of the flight simulator and listen to instructions from the Simfly staff to support with take off, mid flight and landing the plane.

Some of the students had never been to an airport before, the students were all excellent and were fully engaged and loved taking part in the full programme, some of which are now thinking of a career in the Aviation sector.

Gatsby Benchmarks

We focussed the sessions on Benchmark 6 but also incorporated Benchmarks 2 & 4 to inform the students about career pathways/opportunities in Tees Valley as well as linking the job roles to subject learning such as English, Maths and Science.

Impact

Please see below some links to show the impact of the event:

TVCA Video – Watch here

Bev Boden Post – See here

Quotes from the Simfly staff

Stuie Ellerton – Simfly Director/Instructor:

It was our pleasure to welcome once again to SimFly TVCA and almost 60 female students celebrating “women in aviation”. Throughout our three days working with the learners we were very pleased to see how they all engaged in the tasks we set within our learning zones. Speaking as flight crew it was extremely pleasing to see how each and every student embraced principles of flight and endeavoured to understand a little more about the roles and responsibilities of flying a jet airliner. Our visiting learners learned about airport procedures, taxiing the Boeing 737 aircraft, departure, climbing to an assigned altitude, turns using 20 degrees angles of bank, fuel usage and environmental issues, basic maths using thrust, drag, weight and lift,  flying in the cruise, descending the aircraft, configuration for approach, finals and touch down. Many of the students actually left our facility with a stronger determination to pursue further educational courses aimed at travel and tourism and aviation. SimFly is a fully immersive facility that gives learners an opportunity to see first hand what a career in the aviation sector is like, engaging in role play and being able to use our resources first hand learning skills in customer services, travel agency, border force security, cabin crew and flight crew. It was a fantastic experience for the learners and we are confident that many will seek out their next steps into the world of aviation. We sincerely wish each and every one of the girls the very best of luck in their future careers.

Gemma Reah – Simfly Instructor:

As a Cabin Crew Trainer, with extensive experience as a member of Cabin Crew, my role is to help learners develop the ability to overcome challenging situations with composure and creativity. The female students who attended our training facility certainly provided creativity!

My role is to encourage learners to take on the roles and responsibilities eagerly and develop a positive mindset. With an emphasis on how we communicate, we use the colour energy theory, first developed by Carl Jung, and try to link the classification of psychological personality types with colours. We evaluate at the end of the day whether learners still believe they are the same colour energy they thought at the beginning of the day. This helps learners to understand the role and responsibilities of Cabin Crew and how it can truly test the nature of our own personalities, given the demands of the cabin environment. It was great to see the students across the three days surprise themselves and identify traits of their own personalities, they didn’t even know existed.

Resources

Tees Valley Careers – https://www.teesvalleycareers.com/students/

TVCA Key Sectors – https://teesvalley-ca.gov.uk/business/automotive-and-aerospace/

Teesside International Airport – https://www.teessideinternational.com/

Teesside University Aviation Academy – https://www.tees.ac.uk/sections/about/aviationacademy.cfm

Simfly – https://simfly.co.uk/