Career inspiration for Year 3

These last two weeks have been very exciting for Year 3 as they had the opportunity to hear two doctors speak. These two professionals are not doctors of medicine but are in fact doctors that both work in fields related to the International Primary Curriculum (IPC) topics taught in Year 3.

Just last week, Dr Marina Kenyon, who currently works for the EAST organisation, came to talk to the children of how she studies and helps rescue primates in the rainforests of Vietnam. EAST is one of the school’s community partners and a charity that is supported in different ways by different year groups. In Year 3, during the rainforest IPC topic, the children learn how important and interconnected life in the rainforest is. The children were amazed to hear some of the facts that Dr Marina explained and were fascinated how some animals live in different ways.

On Wednesday this week, Dr Melanie Hopkins, who currently works a curator for the American Museum of Natural History in New York, came to talk to BVIS Year 3 children about her work and research as a palaeontologist. Year 3 were lucky to be invited to visit BVIS and join in the talk. She explained all about her work and how she has been to every continent, including Antarctica, digging up fossils of trilobites. She has even discovered some new species of trilobite and was responsible for naming them. The children were amazed to both see and learn of a fossil that had been found here in the North of Vietnam. 

Talking to professionals about the work they do helps the children realise that the learning they do in school is not just done because it is interesting or keeps them occupied - rather it is important and may one day be a career choice. Indeed, after asking the question who is going to be a palaeontologist when they grow up, more than a third of the children put their hand up!

Mr Mike Martin, Year 3 Leader