2015 Secondary 3 Job Shadowing Project

Post date: Jan 13, 2016 2:43:20 PM

By Kenneth Koh, Dads for Life @ ACS(BR)

In the beginning of 2015, our Vice-Principal Mrs Aw invited Family@Barker to champion a Job Shadowing Project (JSP) for our Sec 3 gentlemen to join willing organizations to experience the working world or "shadow" business professionals who have specific knowledge about an occupation or industry.  JSP was run on a no-salary basis, but with food and transport allowances provided by the organizations. I volunteered to be a part of this JSP team led by Mrs Aw and dedicated teachers, Ms Verin Kaur Giovanni and Ms Alice Wang.

In the first half of 2015, the team tapped on our personal contacts and also cold-called several organizations.  We want to thank God that from our initial list of 20 to 30 organizations, 4 organizations and 1 tertiary institution agreed to work with us on 6 projects which comprised job shadowing, project work and excursions ranging from 1 to 14 days. They are:

·         KPMG;

·         NTUC e2i;

·         SEA Aquarium;

·         Preparazzi;

·         Serious Gaming Hub (Temasek Polytechnic); and

·         IT Operations Centre (Temasek Polytechnic).

Besides getting our gentlemen to experience real-life working environments, we also simulated job application and interview sessions. For instance, our Sec 3s were required to ‘apply’ for their preferred job by completing an application form, and were then interviewed by ‘employers’ from the organizations. They were then assigned based on the quality of their application and interview.

As 2015 was the maiden year of JSP, we started small and made it voluntary for the Sec 3s.  We had 56 participants, and are thankful that we received overwhelming responses from the organization as well as parents:

KPMG Facebook:

Today, KPMG hosted a group of ACS (Barker Road) students as a joint educational project. The students learnt about the work performed by the professionals at KPMG; had lunch and lots of fun at the Clubhouse; and toured our client’s (Sheng Siong) state-of-the-art warehouse. 

The boys had a glimpse into the world of audit through learning about the inventory process at Sheng Siong and what the auditors look out for when auditing the inventory of the client. The highlight of the day is when they got the opportunity to enter Singapore’s largest cold room which is maintained at -25oC.

Heartfelt thanks to Sheng Siong for hosting us at their premises today! :)

Parent #1:

The boys are very fortunate to work at Secondary 3 in a Big 4 (accounting firm). During my time, I only managed to do internship at the Big 5 after my A levels.

Parent #2:

Inventory management is what the PoA boys have to learn next year. Thank you for arranging this job shadowing opportunity.

Parent #3:

Interesting and great exposure for our boys. Good linking up and efforts by the Committee.