On the 25th April creative design professionals from Cuckoo, a design firm in Manchester, came to visit Sharples School to work with year 9 pupils. They were asked to work on a set of infographics to promote careers and career pathways into the NHS. Pupils worked closely with the designers to create the drafts which will then be professionally finished and used to promote NHS Careers around Greater Manchester and nationally. In addition to this, the pupils learnt about infographics. They made decisions about how to combine words, pictures, graphics and other visual forms. Year 9 pupils worked in a team of 2-3 students on 4 themes: Nursing & Nursing Assistants, Allied Health Professionals, Healthcare Scientists and Apprenticeships. They had spent time over the Easter holidays compiling independent research in advance of the workshop. Subsequently, this information was sent over to the designers so they could develop some resources and tools to use on the day. During the workshop, pupils worked together with the designers to pick out and draft a design for how the information would be represented graphically. The next steps are to see how their ideas have been shaped into a final product. It was an amazing experience to work alongside graphic designers. Pupils learnt about careers in graphic design alongside developing new graphics skills.
