Virtual School Series: Students aged 14-18 - video transcripts

Session 2 - Aiming high and setting goals | Year 10-13

Hi everyone, I want to give you a very warm welcome to the second session of PwC’s Virtual School Series. In this session, we will be focussing on the skill of aiming high and goal setting. My name is Sam and I work in the Consulting line of service in PwC’s Manchester office.

So, in the session today we are planning on covering the following which is aiming high and setting goals, why are goals important, goals and values, SMART Goals and then at the end there is going to be a challenge and reflection activity.

So, like I said, throughout the session there will be various discussion points or short activities for you all which I really encourage you to take part in. But I’ll make it clear when it is time to complete these activities during the session so you can pause the video and complete these.

So, first things first I want to give you a bit of an introduction to the focus skill for this session which is going to be aiming high. So, aiming high is just one of the skills that form the Skills Builder Framework. This consists of 8 Essential Skills which are key to ensuring everyone is successful in education, careers and wider life as a whole. The reason for these being so important is due to their transferability meaning you can use them in a wide range of different settings and scenarios. The Skills Builder Universal Framework helps to break down each of these skills into progressive stages and steps so that we can all understand exactly what is meant by them and how we can build them.

So, for example, aiming high can be broken down into the four stages seen below.

This is the ability to work effectively, setting goals, creating plans and developing strategies. So for example, with myself, aiming high plays a lot in my life both within my job at PwC and outside of it. For example, at PwC I am constantly aiming high and setting goals for how I would like to progress my career in the future. Whether that’s around building new skills, or working on particular projects. And then, outside I do a lot of climbing, I'm always trying to find a harder route or a harder puzzle to figure out on the wall.

So now we are at the point for our first discussion activity which is ‘What do we mean when we talk about aiming high?’ So I want you all to take a few minutes to have a discussion with each other and gather reflections on this. Teachers, you are now able to facilitate this and think about the following questions to help form your answer which is, ‘What does doing well look like for you?’ ‘This time next year what do you want to have achieved and what do you want to be proud of?’ You can now pause the video and we will return to it once the discussion has taken place.

Welcome back, now I hope everyone had some good discussions. Aiming High is defined by the Universal Framework as ‘the ability to set clear, tangible goals and devise a robust route to achieving them’.

Now, after the discussion I would like everyone to think about how confident you feel with this skill. Rate your confidence on a scale of 1 – 5, where 1 is not at all confident and 5 is very confident. Make sure you are being reflective about this at all times you have used this skill so your rating is accurate. Remember, we all have skills that we feel less confident with using and would like to get better at! So there’s nothing to feel worried about.

Time for the second section in the session. In this section we are going through and examining the idea of setting goals, exploring why these are important, how we can set them and why it is necessary to order and prioritise our tasks to achieve them.

So, before we get started, thinking about strategies to support aiming high, I want you to spend a few minutes thinking about the things you can do. What are the things you find easy and what are the things you find difficult? For example, you might find playing football with friends really easy but speaking in French much more difficult. I know I do!

So, an example for me is the fact that I really enjoy the social aspects of my role at PwC. So I find all the meetings and talking to people much easier, but when it comes to going through paperwork or excel sheets I can sometimes struggle. As a side note, I want you to all bear in mind the things you've listed as more difficult because we will be re-visiting these later when we go onto goal setting.

The importance of goal setting. So, when looking at the bigger picture, goals help us identify something that we want to happen and create a plan as to how we are going to get there. So why do goals matter? They help us stay focussed on what you want to achieve. They give you motivation to get there, they allow you to make an action plan and stick to it and demonstrate your progress and ultimately celebrate your success. Goals can be a part of every aspect of life and are used to provide a sense of direction, motivation, clear focus and clarify importance. By setting goals you are providing yourself with a target to aim for. It is not just us who think they are important, so many people have achieved incredible things through setting goals and sticking to them. Think of athletic superstars: Usain Bolt, Mo Farah, every day of their life they are setting goals - how can they perform faster, how can they perform better? And then for example, Joe Wicks, fitness presenter always talks about the importance of setting goals in the wider context of staying fit and healthy.

Onto the third section, we are now going to explore our goals, our values and how we can ensure that these two areas match. So no we are going to think about you, we are going to take a few minutes to think about two very important questions; the first being what are the things that are important to you, what excites you? For example, I really like to play music on the piano. It’s important to me as I am learning a new skill and supports my wellbeing as well.

And then the second important question being; what would you do to change the world? If you could tackle it, do you think about being environmentally friendly and who in our world do you aspire to be like?

Teachers, again, if you are able to pause the video again to give everyone a few minutes to discuss and reflect on the above questions.

Welcome back, I hope everyone had a really good discussion on those two questions. We’re now onto the fourth section of the session which is talking about SMART Goals. What are they and what in fact makes these goals ‘SMART?’

A SMART goal is used to help guide you in your goal setting. SMART is an acronym which stands for specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time bound. A SMART goal incorporates all of these criteria to help focus your efforts, check your progress and increase the chance of achieving your goal.

We are now going to go through each of the acronyms and talk through what makes the goals SMART. Firstly, goals should be specific. Goals that are specific have a significantly greater chance of being accomplished. So a specific goal will usually include these three points: what do you want to achieve? Specific reasons, purpose or benefits of accomplishing the goal and the definition of a successful outcome.

For example, what do you want to achieve? A specific grade in your exam, be that in Maths, English. The reason for this goal - it could be to get onto a university course or get onto a college course for example. The definition of a successful outcome would be getting the planned grade.

Next, goals should be measurable. Measurable goals allow you to identify clear criteria for measuring progress towards your goals and defining what success looks like. If a goal is not measurable you won’t know whether you're making progress, measuring progress will help you to stay on track and spur you on when more effort is required to help reach the ultimate goal.

Similarly to a specific, a measurable goal will usually answer these three questions:

How much? ‘I want to make £500.’

How many? ‘I will do that by selling 500 cakes.’

How will I know when that’s accomplished? ‘I will have sold the 500 cakes and, if I was a good businessman, I would have made £500 profit at the same time.’

Next, we have achievable, this is the word in the SMART model. But, I also want to highlight another key word which is aspirational. An achievable goal should stretch you - but not so much that it is out of reach of given available resources. Outline an action plan to break down your goal into manageable tasks - lots of small steps equal a big achievement. An achievable goal will usually answer this question - ‘how can my goal be accomplished?’

But ultimately, you need to be aspirational - never let others talk you down from your goals if you believe in them. You are the only person that can monitor your own progress.

Next we have R for Relevant.

When setting goals, you want to make sure the goals are relevant to your personal development, education or career plans. For example, ‘I will paint stripes onto 20 trees by Wednesday to make the trees look pretty.” It may be specific, it is measurable, we’d hope it is achievable and it is time bound but in reality is it relevant?

A relevant goal will answer ‘yes’ to these questions:

‘Is this goal worthwhile?’ ‘Is this the right time, will it support my development and does it contribute to a bigger goal or objective?’ And, I really hope that someone never has to have a relevant goal of painting twenty stripes on twenty trees!

Lastly, in the SMART Goal model we have time-bound. This means it must have a start and finish date. If the goal is not time constrained there will be no sense of urgency and therefore less motivation to achieve the goal. Time bound goals can be either short or long term and multiple short term goals can often equal an overall long term goal. Regardless, for a time bound goal we usually answer these questions below:

‘When can I achieve this goal by?’ ‘What can I do within six weeks?’ ‘What can I do within six months?’ ‘And, what can you do today?’ But, the point of the matter is, a time constraint needs to be in place.

An example of a SMART Goal has been included below. One way we can record our SMART targets is by using a table like this. This helps us break down each letter of the acronym and write a clear objective for our goal.

For example, one that I put in, what do I want to accomplish? ‘I want to get better at running.’

So what specifically about this do I want to accomplish? ‘I want to place in the next top 10 at my local park run.’

How is this measurable? ‘I will run the race and I’ll come 10th or below’

How can I do it? ‘I will continue to train for the park run.’

How is this relevant? ‘It will help improve my overall health and physical fitness.’

What is the time constraint on it, when do I want to do it by? ‘I will do it by June.’

So, setting goals in a SMART way is a brilliant way to start. Once you've set them it’s really good to think about how you're going to stay accountable to your goals. Also, how to celebrate achievements along the way. So, there are multiple ways you can do this, firstly you can set some time aside every few weeks to check in on your goals - maybe keep a diary or journal. Create a checklist and then set yourself some reminders on a calendar or on your phone.

Secondly, we can break up the goals into smaller tasks that you can work on incrementally, because everyone knows it is much easier to work on something smaller than tackling a much bigger problem to begin with. Third one, we can think about the order in which you need to work on these tasks, so you can prioritise and make steps of progress towards your goals.

When you do make progress, celebrate. Everything you achieve is a step towards your bigger goal, and you should be proud of the work you’re putting towards achieving it.

And lastly, don’t be afraid of adapting your goals. It’s ok for things to change, but make sure your goals are updated to reflect this.

Now we’re onto the fifth section of the session, which as mentioned at the start, is the challenge section. So now that we have gone through setting SMART Goals, it's your turn. This challenge builds on the aiming high and setting goals session we have just completed.

So, for the challenge, I would like everyone to use the above template to set your own SMART Goals. Within this, you need to set a short, a medium and a long term goal. This would be a good place to start. Teachers, if you're able to pause the video while this activity whilst it is being done and we can return once it’s completed. Thank you.

Welcome back. I hope everyone was able to set SMART Goals for themselves. Remember, it was a short, a medium and a long term goal. So, it would now be great if everyone could select one of their goals, perhaps one of the short or medium term ones and hone in on the achievable section of their SMART Target. What I would like you to do now is come up with a priority list for the tasks within your goal.

Like the example on the slide, to achieve a B in Maths I will attend all my maths lessons, complete maths homework and coursework and spend three hours per week revising for three months before the exam. The order of priority for making this goal achievable would be; compete maths homework for Friday's deadline. Plan out my maths revision timetable for this week. And then lastly, complete three hours of revision focussing on algebra, statistics and ratio.

Now that we are all done with the challenge section, we are onto the last section of the session where it is time to reflect on everything we have learnt so far. Now is a great time for everyone to pick one of the above questions and reflect on how we use the skill aiming high. With these questions being; ‘How can we set ourselves goals?’ How do tasks link to goals?’ And, ‘how can we organise the tasks that need to be done?’

Now after reflection on those questions, let’s revisit the confidence rating for the skill aiming high from the beginning of the session. I would like everyone now to re-rate their confidence on the scale from one to five, where one is not at all confident and five is very confident. After learning everything in the session and completing the challenges, how confident do you feel now? Has it changed at all and can you explain why you feel this might have changed?

Now, keep practising. I really hope you have enjoyed this session on the skill aiming high. Are you keen to find out more ways to practise this skill? Here’s a task that you can take away from the classroom and try at home. We would love to hear your reflections and see your learning following this session. So share with us! Your teacher can submit any of your ideas by email and we read through all the submissions.

Session 4 - Leadership | Year 10-13

Caroline Turnbull-Hall: Hi everyone, and a very warm welcome to the next session of PwC's Virtual School Series which focuses on the skill of leadership. My name is Caroline Turnbull-Hall and I am joined by Emma Fuentes, we both work in the Purpose Community and Corporate Affairs team at PwC.

Emma Fuentes: In this session, we're going to cover the leadership skill, exploring what it means, what makes a good leader and how to lead yourself and others. We'll then work through a challenge to put to practise what you've learned and finish with some final reflections on leadership.

Caroline: So there are eight essential skills, which are key to ensuring that everyone is successful in their education, careers and wider life. And these are very important because they're transferable, which means you can use them in a wide variety of different settings. The Skills Builder Universal Framework breaks down each of these skills into progressive stages and steps, and this helps everyone understand exactly what they mean and how to build these skills. So in this session, we're focusing on leadership. And that's broken down into four stages. Understanding emotions, managing tasks, supporting others and adapted leadership.

Emma: Let's look at our focus skill in more detail - leadership. What do we mean when we talk about leadership? For me, leadership is somebody who listens and gives everyone a voice, someone who works collaboratively with their team and it's always there to set an example. Take a few minutes to reflect on what leadership means to you. Your teachers might pause this video to give you some time to think about this using the following questions as pointers. Why is it important to recognize other people's feelings when leading a team? How can you make sure tasks are shared fairly as a leader? And what do you think makes an effective leader?

Now that you've had some time to think about what leadership is. Let's take a look at how we can define it.

Caroline: So leadership is defined by the universal framework as supporting, encouraging and developing others to achieve a shared goal. So, let's see how confident you feel with this skill. And I'd like you to do this by rating your confidence on a scale of one to five. Where one is not at all confident and five is very confident. Make sure you think about the times you've used this skill to make your rating as accurate as possible. And remember everybody's got skills that they're less confident at using and would like to get better at.

So, as you can see from the slide good leadership is really closely linked to an effective team. Often when you demonstrate one skill you might also be showing another complementary skill, which means a skill linked to the first one, for example speaking and listening. For me, I use leadership by being organised each morning - rather like the example of Kwame on the slide. By doing this I can lead myself, hold myself to account and also set an example to others.

Emma: So what makes a good leader? We're constantly seeing examples of leadership around us whether it's school, at work, at home or just out and about in the world. It's therefore so important that we regularly reflect on what leadership means to us and how it affects those around us. We're going to start with a quick exercise to get us thinking all things leadership.

Caroline: So this is going to be a 30 second exercise or visualisation, to get you to think about what a leader looks to you. So I'm going to ask you to start by closing your eyes and relaxing.

Now when I say the word leader, who comes to your mind? Is it someone famous? Is it someone at school? Perhaps a teacher, a friend, the headteacher or a dinner lady? Is it someone at home? What is it you like about this leader? Is it the way they speak? The things they say to you or perhaps the things you hear them say to other people? Is it the way they act? Do they inspire you and if so, why do they inspire you? How do they make you feel?

Give yourself a few more moments to gather all of your thoughts.

Whilst you were going through the visualisation. What came into your mind? Who or what do you think a leader looks like?

Emma: I'm sure you all came up with lots of different answers about what leadership means to you. And that's the important thing to remember, there is no perfect leader and different situations will require different leadership styles. The effectiveness of a leader can usually be based on four main elements: their knowledge and understanding of a situation or context, the relationships they hold with the team they're leading, their other characters strengths and their skill sets. Your teacher might wish to pause here and give you a couple of minutes to read this slide fully.

Caroline: So now we're going to talk about leading yourself and leading others. Now when it comes to leadership, it can be really easy to default to thinking of this as the act of leading or guiding other people whether it's an individual or a group. However, the ability to lead yourself is critical as this will help you through any challenges you face as well as leading others. And for the next five minutes, we're going to cover the difference and hopefully get you to think about how you can apply and improve your leadership skills in the future.

Emma: Leading yourself is your way of holding yourself accountable for your actions and having self-awareness. This is important as it allows you to give yourself a sense of direction guided by your personal beliefs and values. It allows you to manage your strengths and weaknesses which will in turn help you manage your time stress and energy levels and deal with challenges. It will help you achieve your goals at school, work or in your extracurricular activities, like improving your grades, getting your promotion or being selected to play in a team. And it will help you exercise empathy and lead by example by treating others the way you'd want to be treated. Leading yourself is an incredibly and increasingly desirable skill in the world of work as it demonstrates your proactive, organised and can work well independently as well as with others.

In your own time, think about how you could work on your own self leadership and how you can translate it into your future personal statements, CVs or applications.

Caroline: And leading others is all about how you drive and support those people around you. Effective leadership means that you can motivate people, building high performing and effective teams and recognizing hard work. You can support other people's development by empowering them, sharing knowledge and coaching them. You recognize the strengths and weaknesses of others around you. Provide support when others are struggling, empathise with them and come up with strategies to help them. And effectively manage work towards an ultimate goal using various skills, including delegation.

Leadership roles can be daunting. But as individuals, we can all add value to a group activity from our different life experiences.

Leading others is a key skill as it demonstrates that you can bring diverse groups of people together to achieve common goals to make people feel included and to tackle challenges and solve problems by coming up with Solutions. You might want to take some time to think about how you can gain experience in the leadership role. So that you can translate this into future personal statements for University, College or perhaps apprenticeship applications and in your CVs to apply for part-time, full-time or internship work.

Emma: You now have five minutes to draw an image that represents you as a leader. We want you to think about everything we've covered in this session and spend some time reflecting on what kind of leader you think you are. Write or draw around your picture with all the leadership qualities that you have. You'll then have another five minutes to pair up with someone and talk them through your picture, each taking two and a half minutes to present back to each other.

Caroline: Now it's your opportunity to take part in the leadership challenge. And this challenge builds on the teamwork and leadership sessions that you've completed in class.

In this challenge, you're going to be introduced to 16 different fictional characters. And what we're asking you to do is to put these people into four teams of 4 to make effective teams. You're going to need to think about the different personalities outlined on the next slide and work out who would be an effective leader. And who else you think might work well in that group. And remember to explain why you think this.

And here are the names of the individuals as well as their strengths and weaknesses. Have a think about who would complement each other to share responsibilities when working towards a common goal and who would be a good leader.

Emma: It's now time to reflect on everything you've learned in this session.

Caroline: Reflect on this skill by picking one of the questions from this list to answer and take a few minutes to think about it using everything that you've learned in this session. Your teacher might wish to pause the video here to give you some thinking time.

And now let's revisit that confidence scale rating that we did at the start of the session. Re-rate your confidence on a scale of one to five where one is not at all confident and five is very confident. Think about how confident you feel now. Has this changed since the start of the session? And if so, can you explain why?

Emma: We hope you've enjoyed this session on the skill of leadership. If you're keen to find more ways to practise this skill here is a task you can take away and try outside of the classroom.

Caroline: And finally, thank you very much for taking part in this week's session. We really hope that you've enjoyed it. Join us for our next session, which is all around the skills of speaking and listening. Thank you very much.

Session 6 - Problem solving | Year 10-13

Hi everyone and a very warm welcome to this week's session of PwC’s Virtual School series focussing on the skill of problem solving. My name is Crispen and I work in the Technology Data and Analytics Business Unit within our Risk Line of Service.

So, today’s session is focussed on problem solving which is an incredibly important skill that you can learn and apply to your everyday life whether it's at home, with friends, in school, or eventually in the workplace. We are first going to cover what problem solving is, then we are going to go into why problem solving is important and we will then introduce a tool that we can use to help us think through a problem in a creative way - something known as a SWOT analysis. We will then use the SWOT analysis in practice putting your new skills to the test to help solve an important problem that a school called ‘Spark Academy’ are facing with rising bullying. And finally, you will need a piece of paper and a pen to be able to participate throughout the session.

But firstly, let’s give an introduction to the focus skill for this session: problem solving. There are 8 essential skills which are key to ensuring everyone is successful in their education, careers and wider life. These are so important because of their transferability which means that you can use them in a wide range of different settings. And what we have on the screen now is the Skills Builder Universal Framework. And this framework helps us break down each of these skills into progressive stages and steps so that we can all understand exactly what they mean and how to build them.

In today’s session we will be focusing on problem solving and as you can see the four stages within problem solving are the following: completing tasks, exploring problems, analysing problems and finally implementing strategic plans.

So what do we mean when we talk about problem solving? At this point I would like to ask the teacher to pause the video for a few minutes to be able to facilitate a discussion in the class and gather some reflections. A few prompts on the screen can help you facilitate that discussion. So, can you think of a problem you have faced in the past, how did you approach solving this? And what sort of problems might have more than one answer? I will let the teacher pause the video now.

Problem solving is defined by the universal framework as the ability to find a solution to a situation or a challenge. And I would like to ask the class how confident do you feel in demonstrating this skill? So, rate your confidence on a scale from 1-5 where 1 is not confident at all and 5 is very confident. But, I would like to make sure that the class is being reflective about the times they have used this skill and that the rating is accurate. And remember, we all have skills that we feel less confident in using and would like to get better at.

Why is problem solving important? Now that we have a clearer definition of problem solving, we can explore some different strategies to understand the problem, come up with new ideas and find the best solution and take action. So we are going to go through this process during the session just to bring it to life. And as we are focussing on fictional examples we would only be focussing on steps one - understanding the problem, two - generating ideas and three - deciding on the best solution. But in real life, you would take action once you have decided the best solution and implement step number four. So, I would like to ask the teacher to pause the video now if the students have any questions.

So now that we understand what problem solving is, we need to think about why it’s so important. And, as I said earlier it is a skill that you can use in your everyday life, at home, with friends, and eventually in the workplace. But it is also a skill that can be a great way to create positive change and is the source of all new inventions! And, on screen now are just a couple of examples of how it can be used. Problem solving can be used to fix something that is wrong or broken. And the example that we have is university fees. So, reducing university fees so that more students have access to higher education.

Another example would be to address future risk. Someone like Greta Thunburg is looking for solutions to help manage the future environmental risks that are caused by climate change.

And, problem solving can also be used to improve performance - for example, providing students with free textbooks, to improve their performance in exams or to seize an opportunity. The example here is the invention of something like zoom or FaceTime so that we can chat to friends and family online.

Let’s move onto the SWOT analysis. So there are many different ways to go about understanding and solving problems regardless of whether they are personal, related to school or work or something else entirely. So, for example, you might want to have a discussion with your friends and family or you might want to write a pros and cons list or you might choose to research your problem online and see how others have dealt with it. So, no one way is better or worse than another - these are all just simply different approaches.

Even though these are different approaches there are some specific problem solving methodologies that have been developed to help you, and businesses, think about complicated problems in a way that you may have not considered before. Today, we’re going to focus on one of these techniques, known as the SWOT analysis.

What does it stand for? Well SWOT is an acronym that stands for: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. So at this point I would like the class to create a SWOT analysis grid. To carry out a SWOT analysis we need to split our paper into four equal boxes and in each of these boxes I want to have one word in each of these boxes. Each section of the table represents a different area of the analysis. And, it can also be helpful to write the problem in the middle of the grid as well. So the words that are in the boxes of the grid are on the left hand side - strengths and opportunities and on the right handside - weaknesses and threats. It is good to note that on the left hand side it is positive whilst on the right hand side it is negative. So, I would like the teacher to pause the video now so the students are able to create their SWOT analysis grid that we will apply later to a challenging problem.

So what is the problem? Imagine that you are a member of the School Council at a school named Spark Academy. The school have asked you to help come up with a solution to the following problem:

Spark Academy have noticed that there has recently been an increase in the number of bullying incidents within the school. How can they tackle this?

We are going to use the SWOT analysis technique to understand the problem and then help generate some suggestions for Spark Academy. We will then use one solution for the school to implement. So, at this point, I would like to ask the teacher to pause the video so that students are able to use the SWOT grid that they created on the last slide to just write down some of their own ideas, and then later on we will work through this analysis together.

So, let’s look at the SWOT analysis grid. Firstly, strengths and weaknesses. And, the strengths part of this grid is supposed to answer the following questions: 'What are Spark Academy good at?’ and ‘What do students enjoy?’ And answers to these questions could be the following: the fact that students and teachers respect one another. The fact that Students are engaged and the majority say that they enjoy their lessons, Spark Academy are investing in technology throughout the school and usually there is not a lot of bullying at the Academy.

What about weaknesses? Weaknesses would answer questions such as: ‘Where could Spark Academy improve?’ and ‘What are students unhappy about?’ So what are examples that we have here? One weakness is the fact that there has been an increase in bullying recently, both online and in person. Another weakness is the class sizes - some might consider them a bit large. And the fact that teachers are not available during breaks and lunchtimes is another weakness that Spark Academy faces.

So, it’s important to note that both strengths and weaknesses are internal factors, so factors that are coming from within the school which may have an impact on Spark Academy. I would like to ask the teacher to pause the video now if students have any additional points they would like to add.

Moving on to the opportunities and threats section of the SWOT analysis. Opportunities - what opportunities are available that Spark Academy could benefit from? They could benefit from the fact that the council is offering a grant to use for technology in schools. It could also benefit from the fact that a primary school has just opened next door and that primary school is keen to work with the Academy.

What about threats? Threats would answer the question: ‘What may negatively impact the school?’ A negative impact that the school might face is the fact that some parents are thinking of moving their children to a new school if the bullying situation is not resolved. So again, it is important to notice here that opportunities and threats are external factors, they are coming from outside the school which may have an impact on Spark Academy. And again, I would like to ask the teacher to pause the video here so that students can think of any additional points to add to opportunities or threats.

So, once we have completed our SWOT analysis we can use this to help us generate some creative ways to solve our problems. And here are a couple of ideas that we thought of using the SWOT analysis as a guide. So, if we look at the opportunity that we identified, which is the fact that a primary school just opened next door and are keen to work with the academy. What solutions might we create from this opportunity? Here are a couple of examples: Spark Academy students could plan and run anti bullying sessions at the new primary school. This would increase awareness of bullying for pupils at Spark Academy as they plan the workshop. And,then students could also think of ways to tackle bullying and apply them to their school too. So that’s an idea that was generated by looking at the opportunity - that a primary school has just opened next door.

And what is an idea that could be generated when we look at the strength and weakness that Spark Academy are facing? They are investing in technology throughout the school and that there has been An increase in bullying recently, both online and in person. So here the idea generated is the fact that Spark Academy could focus on cyber bullying as there has been an increase in use of technology throughout the school. They could run cyber bullying workshops for students and parents just to explain the impact this can have on people and how students can stay safe online.

So just to summarise, a SWOT analysis helps us to think of focussed solutions as they are based on factors directly linked to the problem. And, I would like to ask the teacher to pause the video here, just for a few minutes so the students can think about more solutions to Spark Academy’s problem. And, I would like to ask the students to link their solutions to one or more points on the SWOT analysis grid.

So, once we have generated lots of solutions we then need to generate the best idea. In some cases there may be more than one solution that you or a business decide to take forward and action because different solutions may target different parts of the problem that you are facing. So there are lots of different factors which may influence which solution you choose to implement. And these are on the screen now and include: ‘How much time do I have?’ Does my solution need to be implemented immediately or can it take a few weeks or even months to find a resolution?

‘What is my budget - how much money will each solution cost?’ Sometimes the best solution may not be plausible because it costs too much money and we should always consider if we have the funds to be able to implement the solution that we are proposing.

‘Who could implement this solution’? Is another question we should be thinking about. ‘Do we have the people available who could do this or do we need to find someone new?’ And again, this is linked to time as people who would like to implement your solution may not have the time to do so.

‘What challenges might I face, will everyone be happy with the solution or will people have complaints or queries?’ It’s important to consider how other people will be affected by what you are proposing.

‘Is my solution feasible and does this fully resolve my problem?’ Sometimes solutions may not solve the full problem but only parts of the problem. And we should try to understand if this is the case as soon as possible as we may need to have another solution too.

There are many factors to consider when deciding on a solution. It is a very complex process and you will not be able to fully resolve every issue you encounter but you should try and stop them being an issue as much as you can.

It’s now time to decide on our best solution. So Spark Academy are going to choose one solution to solve this problem. And as a reminder, on screen now are the two solutions we generated. If you also thought of a solution to the bullying problem, you could suggest Spark Academy choose this idea instead. So I would like to ask the teacher to pause the video now and give students three minutes to choose a solution for the school. There is no right or wrong answer when choosing a solution, but it is important to be able to explain why you have chosen this solution above the others and why you have chosen this solution for Spark Academy.

So, the school council at Spark Academy spent a while discussing which solution to choose. They found it quite challenging to decide on one solution because there were lots of positive points for each idea. However, they finally decided on the following solution: to focus on cyberbullying. And they chose this idea for a variety of reasons: there has been an increasing use of technology at Spark Academy. So if they don't tackle the cyberbullying problem now, students are concerned it could become an even bigger problem. And the council is offering a technology grant, this is a great opportunity to promote online safety as these new technologies are being introduced into the academy. Students and teachers respect each other at Spark Academy and this should be embedded online as well. Furthermore, the last reason why this idea was chosen is because of the fact that students could also run this session with the primary school that has opened up next door.

These are the reasons that are given in support of this solution, and as you can see they’re all linked back to the SWOT analysis we performed earlier. So it’s important that we use our understanding of the problem to be able to generate ideas but also justify our chosen solution.

So now we will be moving onto a challenge. So this challenge builds on the problem solving session that you have completed in class. And during this activity we will use the skills that we learned during that session to address a new problem. So you will get into groups of three and imagine that you are a member of the local council for the town of Port Sunlight and the council have asked you to come up with solutions for the following problem. Levels of obesity have been on the rise in the town of Port Sunlight over the last 2 years. How can the local council help tackle this?

So, we will split this activity into three. Activity 1 will be understanding the problem, activity 2- generating ideas and finally deciding on the best solution which you will present back to the class.

Now that we know the problem that we are trying to solve we are going to move to the first activity which is understanding the problem a little bit better. So, in your group of three please use the SWOT analysis technique that we went through during the Creative Problem Solving session to understand this problem and help generate some suggestions for the Port Sunlight local council. I will give you ten minutes to do so. So once you have finished we will go through some examples and discuss what you have come up with. So I will let the teacher pause now for the students to perform this activity.

As a recap, this is what a SWOT analysis would look like, so the problem is in the middle: levels of obesity have been on the rise in the town of Port Sunlight over the last few years. How can we tackle this? And, a SWOT analysis is split into four: strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. And under each are questions that can help generate some ideas for each of the boxes.

Let's work through a worked example together. So strengths - what are the council good at? What do the residents enjoy? Here are some ideas: a strength could be the fact that the local community are close knit. Another one is the fact that there are lots of outdoor spaces in the community, including a local beach and numerous parks. And finally another strength is the fact that a new running club has recently been started by a local resident and already has 20 members.

What about weaknesses? Where can the council improve and what are residents unhappy about? So the local council gyms are expensive and full of old equipment. That's a weakness that the Port Sunlight town faces. Another one is the fact that there are lots of fast food restaurants in the area, offering cheap food options for residents.

So again, strengths and weaknesses are internal weaknesses existing within the town which may have an impact on obesity. I would like to ask the teacher to pause here for the students to answer the following question: ‘Did your group come up with any other ideas?’

So now we will be looking at the opportunities and threats. What opportunities are available that Port Sunlight could benefit from? So we know that at Port Sunlight the government has recently started a nationwide healthy eating campaign. We also know that another opportunity is the fact that the council has recently been offered government funding to support this campaign. And finally, a new Aldi is opening in the town centre.

What may negatively impact Port Sunlight - what might be a threat? A threat could be the fact that a new McDonalds and KFC are opening in the area over the next few months. So these are external factors from outside the town that may have an impact on obesity. Did your group come up with any other ideas?

So once we have generated lots of solutions we then need to choose the best idea, in some cases there may be more than one solution that you and or a business decide to take forward in action because different solutions may target different parts of the problem you are facing. There are lots of different factors which may influence which solution you choose to implement. And, if we look at the opportunity that we have identified in our SWOT analysis grid we’ve said that the council have recently been offered funding to support the nationwide campaign and we have also said that a new Aldi is opening in the town centre offering more affordable and healthy food. So based on that, what idea could we potentially generate? We could generate the fact that the council could fund a new advertising campaign across Port Sunlight that promotes low cost and healthy meals and they could also work with Aldi and other local supermarkets to promote cheap and healthy ingredients. So that is one of the ideas that could be generated by looking at these opportunities in our SWOT analysis grid.

And what about if we looked at the strength and weakness that we identified. The strength being the new running club and the weakness - the local council gyms are expensive and it’s full of old equipment. By looking at these two we could generate the following idea: the council could start a new outdoor sports club as a free, low cost way of encouraging local residents to exercise. So as a group for activity number 2 I would like the students to think of one of more solutions you could apply to this problem. And again, remember to link your solution to at least one point in your SWOT analysis grid.

These are the factors that we need to consider when generating lots of solutions. We need to consider: ‘How much time do I have?’ Does my solution need to be implemented immediately? We need to consider ‘What is the budget?’ How much money will each solution cost? We need to consider who could implement this solution so we have the right people to do so - are people available? Do we need to find someone new? What challenges might we face? So will everyone be happy with this solution, or will people have complaints and queries? And is my solution feasible? So we need to check if the solution we generated is actually feasible to implement. And we also need to know whether or not it fully resolves the problem. Sometimes solutions may only solve parts of the problem. We should try and understand if that's the case as soon as possible as we also may need to have another solution. So these are the many other factors we need to consider when deciding on the solution and it’s a very complex process and you will not be able to fully resolve every problem you encounter but you should try and stop them being an issue as much as you can.

So for our final activity, considering the factors we have just been through on the previous slide, it is time to work with your group and choose your best solution. Some ideas that we have come up with are illustrated here on the slide, so the local council to fund a new healthy eating advertising campaign or for the local council to start a new outdoor exercise club. So, as a group, decide which solution is best and remember there is no right or wrong answer when deciding on the solution to solve your problem but it's important that you’re able to explain why you chose this solution above the others and why you chose this solution for Port Sunlight.

So I would like to ask the teacher to pause for ten minutes now to let the student complete this activity.

So, it's time to reflect on everything you have learnt in this session. I would like to ask the students to reflect on at least one of the questions on the screen now. ‘How can you approach problem solving?’ How can you come up with lots of possible solutions?’ ‘And why is it important to consider a range of solutions for complex problems?’

And finally, I would like to revisit the confidence scale rating from the beginning of the session. I would like students to re-rate their confidence in problem solving from 1 - 5, where 1 is not confident at all and 5 is very confident. And think about the following questions: how confident do you feel now after going through the session and can you explain why you think this might have changed?

So we really hope that you enjoyed this session on the skill of problem solving and if you are keen to find more ways to practise these skills, here’s a task you can take outside the classroom. And we would love to hear your reflections and see your learning following the session. To share this with us your teacher can submit your ideas via email. We look forward to all of your submissions.

Thank you for taking part in this week's session, we really hope you enjoyed it! And join in next week for the skill of creativity that's going to be explored. Thank you.

Session 8 - Staying positive | Year 10-13

Emma Fuentes: Hi everyone, and a very warm welcome to the final session of PwC’s Virtual School Series. My name is Emma Fuentes, I’m joined by Varoline Turnball-Hall and we both work in the Purpose Community and Corporate Affairs Team at PwC. The topic for our session today is staying positive. In this session we will be discussing mental health and wellbeing which I'm sure you’ll all agree is a really important topic for us all.

At the end of the session we'll spend some time reflecting on the knowledge and skills you've developed over the course of the past six weeks and how you can take this forward with you.

Caroline Turnbull-Hall: So what are we going to cover in today's session? Well, as you can see from the slide, we're going to start with an introduction to the skill of staying positive. We'll then have a brief discussion on Mental Health which will include a myth busting mental health quiz. And then we'll look at some of the techniques that you can use to support not only your own mental health, but also that of others. And finally to close the session, we'll take some time to reflect on this skill.

Emma: So what do we mean when we talk about staying positive? There are eight essential skills, which are key to ensuring everyone is successful in their education career and wider life. They're so important due to their transferability meaning you can use them in a wide range of different settings. The skills build a universal framework helps to break down each of these skills into progressive stages and steps so we can all understand exactly what they mean and how to build them. In this session, we're going to focus on staying positive which can be broken down into four stages: keeping trying, finding opportunities, managing risks and rewards and supporting others to stay positive.

Caroline: And staying positive means something different for everybody. But for me, it means that when things go wrong, and they do sometimes, whether it's at home or at work it's important not to get knocked back by this but to look at what you can learn from it. Nobody ever wants things to go wrong, but you learn far more from things that go wrong than when everything goes well. And I have to remember this every day to keep me staying positive. So you might want to have a think now about what being positive means to you. You might want to pause the video and think about how you can tell whether somebody's feeling positive or negative. How you approach a situation where something has gone wrong? And what opportunities you can find in difficult situations?

So now you've had a chance to think about what being positive means to you. The universal framework describes staying positive as the ability to use tactics and strategies to overcome setbacks and achieve goals. So have a think about how confident you feel about this skill? Rate your confidence on the scale of one to five, where one is not confident at all and five is very confident. Make sure you think about the times you've used this skill to try and make your rating as accurate as possible. And remember, everybody's got skills that they feel less confident with using and would like to get better at

Emma: So what does mental health mean? We're going to explore this in more detail and then do a short quiz to bust some myths around Mental Health. Take a moment to think about the question on the slide. What does mental health mean to you? In a second your teacher will pause this recording. What I'd like you to do is take a minute to consider this question and on a piece of paper jot down some of your initial thoughts. After you've had some time to reflect, your teacher will resume the recording and will dive into discussing the topic in more detail.

By the term mental health we are referring to people's ability to cope with the normal stresses of everyday life and realise their own potential. When we hear the term mental health, we usually think of it as a negative term or as an illness. However, it's important to remember that everyone has mental health just like we have physical health. Mental health is rarely an absolute State. It's dynamic and changes over time as a result of things that happen in our lives. As you see on the chart mental health is a continuum. We all sit somewhere on the mental health spectrum and where we sit depends on a variety of factors, including genetics, our brain chemistry, our previous life experiences and what is happening in our lives now. You'll see on the chart that flourishing mental health is at the far right, this represents a state of mental health at its most positive.

Someone here may for example be applying mindfulness to further enhance their strong mental health and really stay in the moment. Then we have mental wellness, which is where most people reside.

Caroline: And then the pink area on the chart shows languishing mental health. And in this phase mental health is declining. Now being sad is a perfectly healthy and normal human emotion to experience. But if that sadness persists and impacts somebody's ability to do things that person may be moving through languishing to mental disorder. If you were to find yourself in this situation, it's really important to reach out for support. An analogy you might like to think about here, to understand the languishing phrase, is imagine having a sore throat. Most people probably wouldn't go to the doctor with a sore throat because it'll clear up in a day or two of its own accord. But if that sore throat lasts, perhaps a week or two, you probably would want to see a doctor in case it's something more serious such as tonsillitis.

And then on the left of the chart, we've got mental disorders. And this covers a wide range of things from stress, anxiety and depression through to less common disorders such as bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. All mental health and stress related conditions sit in the languishing to mental disorders end of the Mental Health Spectrum.

But the most important thing to remember is that everybody has mental health and we'll all move up and down this continuum. It's okay not to be okay. But it's also important to know where you can find support and what coping strategies you can use to manage the daily stresses that everybody's going to experience at some time and can't avoid completely.

And later in the session. We'll share some techniques and resources to help support your own mental well-being and that of others.

So now we'll have a look at a myth busting quiz. Before you start make sure you've got a pencil and a piece of paper. The video’s going to be paused and what I'd like you to do is to make two columns, one headed up true and the other headed up false. This is where you're going to record your answers. On the next few slides, you're going to see a number of true or false statements. For each statement decide whether you think this is true or false and make a note of your answer. The statements will appear one by one. The video will be paused after each statement to give you some time to think about your answer. And then the video will start again and we'll go through the answer before moving on to the next question.

Emma: So let's begin. The first question anxiety, depression, eating disorders and suicidal thoughts are common mental health problems. True or false?

The answer is true, anxiety, depression, eating disorders and suicide are indeed common mental health problems. However, this list is not exhaustive. There are other mental health problems and your teacher will share with you a list of resources for mental health after this session. It's also important to point out that we're referring to suicidal thoughts, suicidal thoughts are relatively common, but suicide or risk is much less common. Most people who have a thought do not go on to act on it. However, should you have a suicidal thought yourself, it's really important that you speak to someone and get support.

Caroline: Question two, agoraphobia is a fear of being in situations where escape might be difficult or where help wouldn't be available if things go wrong. True or false?

And the answer to this question is true. Many people assume that agoraphobia is simply a fear of open spaces, but it's actually more complex. Somebody with agoraphobia might be scared of travelling on public transport, visiting a shopping centre or even leaving the home. They might experience some or all of the following physical symptoms as well: rapid heartbeat, rapid breathing, feeling hot and sweaty or feeling sick.

Emma: Question three, one in four people will experience a mental health challenge in any given year. True or false?

The answer is true. So as we learned earlier all of us have mental health and it's okay if you don't always sit on the wellness and flourishing side of the Mental Health Spectrum. The most important thing is to remember it's okay not to be okay and seek help if you feel your mental health is declining.

Caroline: Question four. People with OCD should give it a rest, people with depression just need to cheer up and people with anxiety need to just calm down. True or false?

And the answer to this question is false. It's not always simple for people to overcome mental health problems that they experience. Different people will experience different types of mental health problems, and it's really important that we listen to that person and their concerns and encourage them to seek support rather than just dismissing them.

Emma: And finally question five. You should not call 999 when you have a mental health emergency. True or false?

The answer is false. You may think that you can only call 999 for a physical health emergency. That's not the case. You should also call them in the case of a mental health emergency. For example, when you think that the person is going to harm themselves or others, like someone saying that they're going to attempt suicide.

Caroline: Well done on completing the quiz and I hope that that's helped to bust some common myths about Mental Health. So now we've had a look at what mental health is, let's move on to look at some techniques that you can use to support your own well-being.

And there are five ways on this slide that might help. You can use these simple things as part of your daily life, whether you're at home or at school and research has shown that all of these can improve mental well-being.

First of all connect with the people around you, make sure you're spending time with your family and your friends. Perhaps make some new friends and use different ways to communicate. Strengthening your relationships with other people is critical to boosting your well-being.

Next be active. Go outside and get some fresh air. Go for a cycle ride. Perhaps a walk or play a game. Think about walking to school instead of taking the bus, maybe going to the park or trying a new outside door activity. Exercise will make you feel good. And there is evidence to suggest that physical exercise changes your brain chemistry and releases happy hormones, which in turn makes you feel more positive.

Thirdly take notice of the world around you. This just means taking time to be still and to think, become aware of your surroundings. Put down your phone or your tablet and come off social media for a while. Notice what you're thinking and be aware of what's going on in the world around you. Both the everyday things and the more unusual things. Be curious. Reflecting on your thoughts and feelings might help you identify why you may be feeling in a certain way.

Emma: Keep learning, maybe set yourself a goal to learn or try something new, research something you're interested in or even visit a museum. Being curious and seeking out new experiences at school and in life more generally positively stimulates the brain And finally, give. Maybe do something nice for a friend, thank someone, smile, volunteer your time, raise money for charity or be a good role model. Take action to improve your neighbourhood. Any acts of kindness whether small or large can make you feel happier and more satisfied about life. Incorporating each of these five simple actions into your day-to-day life has been proven to build resilience, boost your well-being and lower your risk of developing mental health problems. Use the five ways to check in with yourself around your own well-being and how you're supporting yourself.

Another key message we want to deliver besides it's okay not to be okay, is that recovery is probable and not just possible. You can fully recover from all types of mental health conditions. There is one single mental health condition that we cannot recover from. Some people may not fully recover but they can also manage that condition and live full and happy lives in the same way that someone may manage your physical condition, such as lifelong asthma. Most importantly we want you to know that you're not alone. There are plenty of resources and people that are available to support you. After this session your teacher will share with you a list of online resources and apps that you can use to find out more about mental health and find support if you need it. These include some fantastic websites such as the Hub of Hope, mind.org and cooth.com. The following are the basic things that you can do when you're not feeling okay.

First and foremost, seek help. Always remember that there are people that you can reach out to such as your friends, your families, your teachers or your local GP. There are also a number of free listening services who offer confidential advice from trained volunteers. They're available any time of day or night and you can talk about anything that's troubling you no matter how difficult. Call 116123 to talk to the Samaritans or text shout to 85258 to contact the shout crisis tax line, your calls will be completely confidential. Call 111 if you need help urgently for your mental health, but it's not an emergency or you're not sure what to do and finally call 999 or go to A&E if someone's life is at risk or if you do not feel that you can keep yourself or someone else safe. Remember as we said in the quiz, a mental health emergency should be taken as seriously as a physical one.

Caroline: So we've talked about techniques to support your own well-being, but how can you support other people?

If you do spot signs which suggest that somebody's mental health might be declining, for example a change in behaviour. There are three main things that you can do to support them: first of all listen to them. We'll talk about listening techniques in a moment, but the key thing with listening is to remember to be empathetic and accepting.

Secondly, assess and try to work out what it is that your friend is struggling with. And finally, guide your friend by giving them reassurance that it's okay not to be okay and directing them towards the appropriate information and resources to help them. Remember all the tips that we shared with you in the previous session on supporting your own wellbeing? These also apply to supporting the being of others.

And being a better listener is a skill that you can develop. And the Samaritans are possibly some of the greatest listeners.

Emma: On the slide you can see the Samaritans listening wheel, which contains the six elements of effective active listening you can use to improve your listening skills. Firstly use open questions, which don't require a yes or no answer and typically start with how, what, when, where or who. Secondly, summarise what you've heard back to the person you're listening to, this will help to show them that you've listened and understood their circumstances and their feelings. Thirdly reflect, repeating back a word or phrase encourages the person you're listening to carry on and expand. Clarify, sometimes a person may gloss over an important point, by exploring these areas further we can help them clarify these points for themselves. Use short words of encouragement. The person you're listening to may need help to go on with their story.

Using words like yes or go on helps to reassure them that you're interested in what they have to say. React. The individual you're listening to will often be looking for empathy and understanding. We need to show that we've understood the situation by reacting to it. For example, by responding with ‘That sounds like it's very difficult.’ And finally silence, often silence can really be the most helpful thing to give the individual you're listening to time and space to think about what they want to say. Our session on speaking and listening also has some techniques to support active listening, check this out if you haven't already.

Caroline: And overall when it comes to mental health problems, sometimes it's little things that can make a really big difference. You don't have to be an expert to help somebody with a mental health problem. It's sometimes just enough to be there. So perhaps you could just send a text to say hello, or ask somebody how they are. But try and be aware of changes in behaviour and circumstances that might have contributed to somebody's mental health. As this might identify whether it's a temporary change in mood or something that's becoming a bit more overwhelming. Remember everybody reacts differently and feelings are really complicated. So it's worth trying to think about what is normal for that person.

But the most simple thing is you should always encourage others to speak with somebody who can give them some help. It might be a school counsellor, a GP, a member of the family or some online support such as mind or the Samaritans.

Emma: That brings us to the end of our session on mental health. On the slide, you'll see some key points to remember from today. You may now wish to pause and reflect on them, but most importantly remember, it's okay not to be okay.

Caroline: So now we have a challenge and this is going to build on the staying positive session that you've just completed which focused on mental health and wellbeing. The aim of this exercise is to raise your awareness of how you can support the mental health and wellbeing of others. To complete this activity your teachers are going to put you into small groups of two or three. Each group is going to be given two scenarios, which you'll need to read and then in groups brainstorm ideas for actions that you could use to support the individuals in that scenario. Remember to think back to some of the tools and techniques that we've discussed earlier in the session. And you'll have 20 minutes to complete this exercise.

Emma: It's now time to reflect on everything you've learned in this session and your own personal development. Take some time to reflect on one of the questions on this list regarding staying positive and what you've learnt from this session. Your teacher may wish to pause now.

Caroline: And now, let's revisit that confidence rating in the skill to see how its changed from the beginning of the session. Re-rate your confidence on a scale of one to five, where one is not at all confident and five is very confident. How do you feel now? Has this changed? And is there any reason why it might have changed?

Emma: You’ve covered a wide variety of topics above the last six weeks, including teamwork, leadership, problem solving and creativity. To close the course, we are going to conclude with a final reflection to give you the opportunity to think about what you’ve learnt and how you’ve developed. Take three minutes to pick two of the sentence starters on the slide and finish them based on your experience over the last six weeks. In a second, your teacher will pause the video to give you the time to complete the exercise and please be prepared to share some of your ideas at the end.

Caroline: We really hope that you’ve enjoyed this session on the skill of staying positive. If you want to find more ways to practise this skill, there's a task on the slide you can try and take away outside the classroom.

You’ve now completed the final session of PwC’s School Series. We hope you’ve enjoyed the series and the opportunity to develop some key skills which will support you in your future careers. Thanks.