Rising Futures Students Visit Mercedes-Benz World

As part of the Rising Future programme, seventeen Year 8 students visited Mercedes-Benz World in Weybridge on Monday 26th June. They were accompanied by Hannah, the leader of the programme, three of the coaches and Mrs Welham. The purpose of the trip was to accelerate students' progression through the development of essential life skills to support their success in the classroom and beyond. The 'World of Work' day enabled students to broaden their knowledge of the working world, whilst also developing key employability skills.  

With thanks to Fraser Trerotoli who helped to write this recount

When we arrived, we were given a tour by a very knowledgeable and enthusiastic guide, who explained how quickly cars changed and developed from the very first cars to the latest Mercedes-Benz vehicles. Noakai said "I was surprised how quickly Mercedes build cars in history as one year the cars had 3 wheels and the following year they had 4! The first cars had wheels made of wood and then they moved to metal and then air!" Oliver said "I enjoyed looking at the cars and learning about them, especially the orange one which cost 30 million pounds!" Scott agreed "I liked looking at the orange car as it looked like the DeLorean from Back to the Future and it was worth 30 million pounds! The doors were gull wings and were designed that way to overcome a problem."

To test our listening skills and to show what we had learnt on the tour, we were put through our paces with a multiple-choice quiz! One of the questions asked what the three points of the star on the Mercedes-Benz logo represented and we were able to explain that these represented land, sea and air - environments the company believed they would one day dominate with Mercedes-Benz engines.

Next, we watched an educational video about the history of Mercedes-Benz. It was exciting to learn that there is a secret warehouse containing at least one of each car which Mercedes-Benz has ever produced. It would be hard to fathom the cost of the entire collection as one of the cars alone cost 150 million euros!!! Harry wrote "My favourite thing from the world of work day was the quiz as everyone was happy together and it was a nice way to spend time. I also found the documentary interesting and the history of Mercedes-Benz."

After that we worked in small groups to discuss and sort positive and negative traits of employees. The group agreed that professionalism, communication and flexibility were the most important traits to possess.   

Each group discovered more about the people who accompanied us during the speed networking activity, as we were encouraged to ask them questions about their careers. It was enlightening to learn that all of them had followed interesting career paths in their lives, all of which had gone in unexpected directions. Arsenii said "It was interesting to hear what people do for a living, from where they started to where they finished up as many of them changed jobs." Oliver said: "During the speed networking I found out that one of the coaches had some free time because he owned his own business."

Lunch was a unique experience as we ate our sandwiches whilst watching professional drivers speed around the racetrack and customers learn to drift right in front of our eyes! 

Finally, a favourite part of the day was the marketing activity where we had to create a pitch for our chosen Mercedes-Benz car. We were put to the test by having to create a convincing advertising pitch and were then taken out of our comfort zone to pitch our ideas in front of an audience.

Fraser said "I enjoyed the tour and the marketing, especially the teamwork and presenting."

It was a great experience, and everyone left full of ideas for their future careers.