keep going & pursue your dreams

As part of our ongoing Careers provision, and following our recent visit to Media City UK for the Sports Journalism event, we were delighted to welcome BBC Sport football journalist Katie Stafford to UGS, who delivered an inspirational presentation and Q&A session in our Theatre for our Year 7 students.

Katie currently works primarily on the daily Premier League content for the BBC Sport website, and delivered an insightful and entertaining presentation to Year 7 on pathways into the field of sports journalism.

She began by sharing her own story and journey from the very beginning at school and in Sixth Form, through her learning experience at University, and her work experience placements; all of which, as she explained to our students, contributed significantly towards her progress into the profession.

Katie gave a fascinating insight into the many areas in which she has gained experience and worked, from broadcasting assistant and local radio producer while at University, all the way through to interviewing and meeting innumerable famous sports stars, including most Premier League managers, Olympic athletes; and yes, boxer Anthony Joshua!

Katie also shared the highlights of all the major sporting events that she has covered, including the 2020 Olympics, Euro 2020, World Cup 2022, Wimbledon, and the Commonwealth Games. 

As Katie told our students, a journalistic career is enriching and rewarding, with no two days the same, and the demands of facilitating and updating live feeds is as exciting as it is fulfilling.

It was great to see how engaged our students were with Katie's presentation, and the wealth of detail and information that she shared, including the work in which she has most pride from her extensive catalogue, not least: reporting on Brazilian footballer Casemiro's defence stats; the retirement of gold medallist Hockey goalkeeper Maddie Hinch; the Netflix Beckham documentary; and Olympian rugby player Abi Burton fighting back from an induced coma, that took impressive fourth listing on the BBC News app.

The very many questions that our Year 7s were eager to ask Katie is testimony to how invested they were in her presentation; they were keen to learn more about how best to secure work experience placements in the field; about how many different sports, tournaments, and countries that Katie had had the opportunity to cover/visit; had she met Alex Scott (yes!); and on what had been her ultimate favourite working experience to date (a great many, but they include: the World Cup, the infamous Tottenham/Chelsea clash, and Klopp's emotional last game at Anfield).

In fact, our students were inspired to ask so many questions that there was not enough time for them all, but they were delighted when Katie kindly offered to field all their remaining questions by email.

All in all, a fantastic experience for everyone involved, with a great many pointers for our students to take away.

With huge thanks to Katie for taking time out from her current hectic schedule covering the Euros to inspire our students!