Charlotte Steggz @charlottesteggz - Tumblr Blog

Free Speech and Education

A Western professor in Japan has set up a “free speech” zone, and written into his course intro that “free speech” will be maintained, that all students can voice their opinions and views without being called “racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic etc or violating a safe space”.

This is after Dr Jordan Peterson, the canadian academic, had his planned two month fellowship at Cambridge…

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Is Tech Killing Skills?

Recently I attended the Voxburner Youth Marketing conference in London, where I was picking up marketing tips that are used with young people, to use to sell better futures for the students I work with.

Within the talks were two by a chap called James who works at Microsoft. I first came across him in a search engine panel talk where they were discussing, amongst other things, how young…

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Help! I can't use my degree!

Help! I can’t use my degree!

A little while ago I wrote an article for another publication, which didn’t get used in the end (so it seems). It’s a different writing style to the one I use on my blog, but I enjoyed writing it so I figured I’d share it here.

Enjoy!

When I was 18, I had my whole life mapped out. I was going to study Japanese, and do a year abroad. Then, having graduated top of my class, I would live in…

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How to Change Your Soil

Recently I went to a learning and development meetup called Mindchimp. A small group of us sat together with pizza and diet coke and listened to four amazing speakers talk about how to inspire change.

I really enjoyed myself there; I’ve not had any reason to go to professional meetups for the past year so I let them slide as it’s always a heavy use of my social energy tokens to go to a…

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How to use Glassdoor to Boost your Career

Most people think of Glassdoor as that place you go to when you’ve left a terrible job and you want to leave a bad review. The TripAdvisor of the employment world.

But it’s so much more than that, and I’m always keen to show students that it exists, and how to use it, as it can help you with things from getting a pay rise, to doing better in interviews.

Let me show you how.

Level 1 –…

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Revision Tips for Students

I think a lot of people take for granted how much of an art revision is. Especially for parents going through their first round of exams with their children, it can be a tricky time as it’s hard to know what to advise.

Learning from institutions who have revision sorted is really useful, which is why I’m really glad that the Taunton Sixth Formin Somerset have provided these great tips for…

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IWD2019: Let's Make Room for Boys

IWD2019: Let’s Make Room for Boys

Happy International Women’s Day 2019. I’d like to talk about boys.

Hear me out.

I’m currently running a mini experiment at work. In one of my schools, I’ve been running a boys’ club where every week over pizza, we discuss things like mental health, next steps and finance. I ran it with 9 students and it’s been really successful. I had almost perfect attendance and when I see the boys in…

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We need student rent caps

As of June 2019, fees for tenants will become illegal, lifting a financial burden for future renters in the UK. Having just paid £500 in fees to an agent I didn’t choose (who is more expensive than other agents in the area), I couldn’t be happier that people in the future will be spared this pain.

Then, through Instagram, I came to learn of the person who made this new law happen.

It…

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Vignettes On Listening

The Zookeeper

As I signed in at the school, there was some commotion. A tall teenage boy stomped into reception and plonked himself down on one of the sofa chairs.

The walkie talkie behind reception started asking where the boy was. His whereabouts were given, with a sympathetic look to the boy.

He should not be there.

I sat opposite him and as I unwrapped my scarf and took off…

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Why your kid won't study

Why your kid won’t study

The Chrismtas holidays have magical transformational powers. What was once a carefree year 11 is now a stressed out worrier with a twitch. What was a slightly concerned parent is now someone with insomnia, unable to sleep through thoughts of their teenager on the streets because they didn’t get their level 4 in maths.

This week I have had not one but three requests from parents of year 11s to…

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Make It Easy for Myself?

Over the Christmas holidays, the place I usually hold the Cambridge Japanese Circle, a weekly conversation club for Japanese and English speakers, with a 130-member strong group, was closed. Instead I held it at our family home, sitting beside a roaring fire and a real Christmas tree.

My Japanese friends had brought me gifts, which was unexpected. It’s been a while since I lived in Japan and…

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Working with Teachers

There is a whole group of careers that are related to schools, but don’t exist IN schools.

There are people who sell solutions and products to schools; perhaps edutech things, CPD or toolkits. These jobs are really tough because schools just don’t have money to spend on things, even if they know deep down that what you’ll selling will make their lives easier.

There are other people who…

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What you need to know about Apprenticeships

I was watching the BBC2 documentary series School last night. In this episode, about behaviour, an adult-looking teenage boy had been excluded from school due to repeated terrible behaviour.

The camera met him in his bedroom, where he was playing video games. “What will you do next?” we hear from behind the camera. “Uh, I’m hoping to just get an apprenticeship” he shrugs and replies.

Ther…

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Why Teenagers Make Poor Life Decisions

Recently, I have been in conversation with a rental scam artist. Well, several, in fact, but one that was pretty convincing for a time.

He was advertising a one bed flat in Cambridge, for £640 a month. Anyone who knows anything about Cambridge would know that the price in itself is worthy of causing suspicion. Daughter of a frugal father, I still messaged the poster to see what the deal is. (mor…

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Book Review: The Multi-Hyphen Method

Recently, in companies I have worked for in the past, there have been a number of redundancies. I have yet to be made redundant in any role, but I am sure that the odds are stacked against me for the future. My current and my previous roles are both paid for by external funding, so it’s a very dangerous place to be in.

With that in mind, I picked up Emma Gannon’s book The Multi-Hyphen Method. I…

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How to give a talk about yourself

Back when I was new in my previous job, I was asked to stand in for my boss to give a talk about my career. My boss was quite well known, had started her own business. I was someone who had just jumped from a year-long stint in apprenticeship recruitment into this company.

I said yes to the opportunity but I felt like a fraud. Why would these people want to know about my career – I have done…

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Should you send a thank you after an interview?

A few weeks ago, I received a DM from an American follower: “I’m advising someone on their job hunt and was shocked that they didn’t send a thank you message after their interview. Do you not do that over here?”

I replied that it’s not so common – I’ve always found it to be a very American thing to do, but didn’t think it was done in the UK. But as you know, I always like to back up my advice,…

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Charlotte Steggz