Schools should be brave with their curriculum design, putting skills at its centre and should even consider “co-producing” their curricula with local employers if we are to effectively prepare students for the careers ahead of them.
However, the future of careers education is not just in the hands of schools and employers and we will never overcome the current challenges unless the government’s accountability systems begin to value this kind of work.
These two calls to action came during a best practice debate centring on how we can bring together business and education to deliver effective careers guidance and experiences to young people.
The SSAT’s Annual Lecture began with an overview of a range of stark statistics showing the need for this focus. These included:
- There are 700,000 job vacancies, but youth unemployment is four times the national average.
- Almost two-thirds of employers tell the CBI that school-leavers lack workplace skills, but four-fifths of teachers say they need more support in delivering careers guidance.
- A student who has had four or more “employer interventions” at school is five times less likely to become NEET.
- Two-thirds of employers say work experience is one of the most critical things they look for in recruitment, but only 38 per cent of employers offer work experience.
The event gave school leaders, teachers and others the chance to hear from Christine Hodgson, chair of the new Careers and Enterprise Company (CEC), the independent body that is a key part of the government’s solution to the accepted challenges in careers education. Its purpose is to facilitate “better connections” between schools and employers.
The CEC is currently piloting its new programme of Enterprise Advisors, volunteers from the world of business who are giving a day a month to work in clusters of around 20 schools. The work is being co-funded by all 39 Local Enterprise Boards (LEPs) in England and the aim is to have Enterprise Advisors in all 39 areas by the end of this academic year.
Ms Hodgson, who is also the chair of Capgemini UK, said the CEC – whose remit covers secondary education – would be building on evidence of “what works” and said that the initial reviews of the pilot are “very promising”.
A toolkit of evidence-based approaches to employer-education links is also in development and this is to cover a range of activities and is to include mechanisms offering access to local labour market information.
Ms Hodgson said: “We aim to help to inspire and to prepare young people for the world of work. We are asked to do this through better connections between employers and schools.
“We want to make it easier for businesses, small medium and large, to engage effectively with schools and we want to make it easier for schools to receive that help. We want to shed a light on some of the fantastic things that are already going on.
“We are obsessed with what works – it’s really not obvious to employers. We want to make sure that we are building on the evidence. We want to work nationally, but everything that we do will be tailored locally.”
Nick Wergan, headteacher at Steyning Grammar School, a comprehensive school in West Sussex, spoke passionately at the event. He said that his curriculum is built around skills development and urged schools to be “brave” with their own offering.
He said: “At it’s best it should be a co-production – we should have employers and schools co-producing the curriculum. Put employability skills at the core of the curriculum and build the academic curriculum on top of it and be brave enough to broker new partnerships with business.”
Steyning has a Character Growth Card system, which reports on experiences and skills such as growth mindset, grit, zest, and curiosity.
Mr Wergan continued: “Surely skills should be at the core. Our curriculum is built around skills development; we teach it for five hours a fortnight in years 7 to 8, and involve local companies.”
This approach, Mr Wergan argued, would help schools to deliver on the careers agenda at a time of huge budgetary pressure.
He added: “Otherwise what risks happening now with the pressure that schools are under from workload and cuts is that the good bits could go – we risk not having time for enrichment if we are having to cut to the core of what it is we do, so bring it into the curriculum to preserve it.
“I cannot afford to send staff out to quality-assure every work experience placement. The solution is about brave curriculum design and character-based learning. It is the chance for local employers to work with us, giving us real-life projects which are actually on the curriculum.”
Mr Wergan warned that schools that made themselves exam factories risked “producing students that have not failed”.
He added: “Problem-solving is what students need to become experts at. Fail and fail and fail until we do something right – you make money out of doing that now in the real world, and it is key to students becoming successful young adults.”
Mr Wergan listed a range of questions that he said required answering if we are to solve the careers conundrum. He asked:
- Do we, as schools, understand what workplace skills really are? (“We still have work to do on our shared language on this.”)
- Do we all value and promote the Apprenticeship route enough?
- Do employers really value the schools in their area and do schools then commit to working with these employers? Do both genuinely believe they should work together?
- How well do we as schools understand local labour market information?
The headteacher also issued a challenge to the government’s accountability system: “A threat I would say is how much our school system is judged on just preparing students for exams. Accountability systems are measuring what most of us do not think are the most important criteria.”
He continued: “I am not under the pressure that colleagues that are in requiring improvement or category 4 schools are. Those are the schools that need the support of employers most for sustainable improvement, but schools in these categories inevitably have to focus much, much more on exams.
“Frankly, the accountability system has put us where we are. We need to be putting pressure on those who hold us accountable to hold us accountable in a way that would support these partnerships and make them happen.”
Indeed, he welcomes destination data becoming part of the accountability system: “We should be making sure that our students are able to be successful young adults. Our success criteria should be about how students fare at 20, 25, 30-years-old. Destination data does need to be part of our accountability system.”
Ms Hodgson said that the CEC would be concerning itself with the debate over destination data: “Destination and labour market information is important to the company. As far as we can, we intend to package it and include in the toolkit. I see that as part of the evidence we are trying to build.”
The event also heard how younger adults could be key to effective careers guidance because students are more likely to associate with them.
Annamarie Petsis Jones, one of the new Enterprise Advisors who works for company Opus Energy in Northampton, told the event: “Students want to hear from someone who is within a couple of years of their age group, who has been there and made these choices. They want to hear about why they made these choices.”
Mr Wergan agreed: “The role-models are the students themselves.”
Ms Petsis Jones also said that “real-life case studies” could also be key for students.
Timing is key too, with too many interventions happening too late: “It is too late by the time a student is doing their GCSEs. We need to be engaging from year 7 up at the very least.
She also stressed that “parents are key to solving this puzzle”. She identified the need to educate parents on the different options available to their children, including Apprenticeships.
Opus Energy’s involvement in the pilot came about after the company had experienced a “difficult” labour market over the past 12 to 18 months.
Ms Petsis Jones added: “Ninety-five per cent of businesses in Northamptonshire employ less than eight people so most students will not end up in a big corporate, they will work in a small business and that will require different skills.
“It’s not just about the jobs that are available now, it’s about the jobs that we are going to need in the next five or 10 years.”
On the other side, she warned businesses that they must enter into school partnerships with a long-term view.
“The commercial world and the world of schools work in very different ways. Schools work at a different pace and employers need to take that on board. We cannot achieve change overnight.
“You will not see the outcomes in a year, you have to view it as a long-term project.”
For school leaders, Ms Petsis-Jones also said that the involvement of senior leadership was fundamental to the success of enterprise programmes.
Further information
- For more on the SSAT, visit www.ssatuk.co.uk
- For more on the Careers and Enterprise Company, including the Enterprise Advisors, visit www.careersandenterprise.co.uk
- For more on Opus Energy's Apprenticeship programme, visit www.opusenergy.com/about-us/careers/apprenticeship-programme