Generation Go comes to Framingham Earl High School

On Wednesday 19th June, Konectbus visited Year 10s at Framingham Earl High School to encourage them to consider independent travel in advance of their upcoming work experience placements. At the beginning of the day, we conducted an assembly for the whole year group (150 children). This visit was a first for Generation Go!

The assembly was a great opportunity to provide tips and tricks about how to use the bus, how to respect others on board, and how to plan journeys. In this session, we presented the Generation Go video as an overview of the important points, demonstrated the features of timetables, tickets and journey-planning on the website, and highlighted the benefits of using our mobile app. We left each of these students with a Generation Go leaflet, which provides useful information on how to track buses and journey plan, and a QR code to make the app download simpler.

We followed the assembly by conducting a workshop for 15 students on the Preparation for Adult Life pathway. In this session, we began by doing our presentation, which goes into more depth on how to use the online resources, before the students put their skills into practice by completing bespoke journey-planning activities using the website. At first some students were unsure as to the difference between the ‘leave at’ and ‘arrive by’ functions, but by the end of the session, all students had completed both activities and appeared a lot more confident in their answers than at the start of the session.

Within this group, there was a mix of experience levels with regards to bus use. Some said that they used buses very rarely and relied heavily on lifts from parents, whereas others used the bus every day. This said, when they were tasked with planning a journey they were not yet familiar with – as they may have to do in future, whatever their next opportunity might be – they were apprehensive and unsure at first. Having the correct skills to manage and plan for new situations plays a big part in building confidence, and we highlighted the fact that these skills can be applied to planning any sort of travel, whether it be routes operated by other bus companies, or even using the train.

We are really pleased with the way both the assembly and workshop went and could visibly see the increase in students’ confidence by the end of the session, which is what Generation Go is all about!

Headteacher, Beck Arnold, commented: 

We were delighted to work in partnership with Konect to help our Year 10s think about more independent travel especially as they move towards their work experience.  It was great to have in person sessions both for the whole year group and selected students.  We’re very grateful too for the follow up for some students having a free week’s travel to put in place learning from the session.  A great initiative well delivered by the team.

We are looking to spread the word further! If your organisation or school is interested in a Generation Go workshop, please do not hesitate to get in touch!