Skills and careers sweet pong is a fun activity for teachers and careers leaders to play with students and learners during careers events.
About Skills and Careers Sweet Pong
The team at Youth Employment UK invented this fun skills and careers game in order to engage with young people at careers events. It turned out to be a very popular activity, engaging young people and helping them reflect on their skills and future goals in a creative way.
As we have had such good engagement with this careers game, we would be pleased to share it with teachers and careers leaders out there who may be looking for fun careers-related group activities.
We’ve aimed this activity at Ks4/Ks5 students (and equivalent year groups across the UK).
This fun careers activity helps students reflect on:
- Useful life skills
- Real-life examples of using life and work skills
- Writing a CV
- Future careers
- Next steps in life
Download sweet pong school posters
How to set up Skills and Careers Sweet Pong
Arrange a table with small pong cups at one end. Each pong cup contains a wrapped vegan halal sweet and a piece of paper with a truth or dare (examples below).
Students can take it in turns to get a pong ball into a cup. If they succeed, they can have the sweet once they complete the skills and cv-based truth or dare activity in the cup.
Requirements:
- Mini beer pong cups and ball set (about £5)
- Sweet treats (Poundland or supermarkets should provide cheap treats)
- Pen and paper to write out a truth or dare per cup
- Table or flat surface to play on
How to play:
Students: get a pong ball into the pong cup and you can eat the sweet in the cup (but you have to do the truth or dare as well).
Example truths and dares:
These are just examples of questions to include in pong cups – teachers and careers leaders are welcome to use their own!
- Describe a time you solved a problem with common sense
- Describe a time you made a mistake and learned from it
- What three personal strengths would you put on a CV?
- Describe a time you received praise from a teacher, manager or adult in charge. Celebrating your achievements is allowed!
- Name a career sector you might enjoy working in (e.g. engineering, creative)
- Name 3 careers you might enjoy (no pressure!)
- Name 1 career you might enjoy and say WHY
- Pop quiz: Do you know what CV stands for?
- Name 1 way in which you could try to find a job near you…
- Name 2 important skills you think you need for the workplace…
- Why is it useful to make different CVs for different dream jobs you’d want to apply for?
- What is the most irritating thing a manager can do when working with you?
- What are your 3 biggest motivations when choosing a career/job?
- How long should your CV be and can you give a reason why?
- Describe a time when you worked well in a team
- Describe a time when you solved a tricky problem on your own
- Which of these should you NOT put on your CV? Age / experience / qualifications
