ON Thursday, October 5, Queen Elizabeth’s School was visited by the Next Steps South West Roadshow double-decker bus.

The two-week bus tour started on Monday, September 25 at Exeter College and the University of Exeter, before setting off to visit seven secondary schools across Exeter and the surrounding areas, QE being one of them.

The bus is an interactive career zone taken directly to students and schools in order to raise awareness of the options that are available and to inspire and motivate the students in their current studies.

In an interactive way the Year 11 students found out details about the next steps towards higher education.

Three hour-long sessions were run from the bus for more than 40 of QE’s Year 11 students.

The activities included wearing Virtual Reality headsets that immersed students in tours of university campuses and iPads were available to use the RAHE (Raising Aspirations through Higher Education) app to identify their skills and match them with possible jobs.

The app also shows the pathways that can be taken to reach those career paths.

The students completed a quiz on progression options – the answers either being found on the bus or by talking to one of the student ambassadors.

The students also had an "academic session" which consisted of a discussion on Law in the morning sessions and a talk on Business, including entrepreneurship, in the afternoon.

Alan Quick