BUSINESS PARTNERSHIPS


Last year’s Business Awards saw a range of medium and large companies recognised for their partnerships with education. As media partners in the awards, SecEd has already profiled the work of two winners. Lubna Ahmed now looks at the work of the four remaining national winners


Harrogate & District NHS Foundation Trust Winner: Outstanding Commitment (Large)


Launched as a one-year pilot scheme, the Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust has now been running its Education Liaison Programme since May 2007, working with five schools within the Harrogate area. The Trust was nominated by the North Yorkshire


Business Partnership Trust in the 2010 Business Awards, which are run by the Institute for Education Business Excellence, a charity which promotes education and business partnerships. To date, the Trust has worked with 4,000 students


across a number of curriculum areas and it has also been running a volunteering programme for more than two years. The Trust encourages all staff to take part and in the 2009/10 academic year, staff from 40 departments delivered 740 days of work experience. John Forster, deputy chair of governors, said: “The


scheme brings together the aspirations of schools and colleges in relation to key issues such as science in


Union address: UNISON When a holiday is a hardship


For most support staff, term-time working also


means term-time pay. Christine Lewis explains


THE MOST emotive inequality between teachers and other school staff is without question the nature of the working year and pay. With the exception of certain occupational groups in school, like the leadership team, site and some technical staff, the majority of school employees are term-time only workers; their attendance at school is not required during school holidays. But for the vast majority of support staff, “term-


time working” is much more loaded; it actually means term-time pay. Their salaries and other benefits, like pensions, arrived at by the local authority or school are reduced by about 15 per cent to reflect the weeks when they are effectively laid-off. This might not be such a running support staff sore


if headline salaries were not so meagre. Many school staff have a pitiful wage, cannot claim jobseekers’ allowance (JSA) during unpaid weeks, and, like teachers, are unable to take time off when school is open, which often makes holidays prohibitively expensive. Their chagrin intensifies when term-time working is described as a flexible working practice for those with caring responsibilities; like they have a choice. There is a long and complex history to support


staff employment in schools. It has been hard for this predominantly part-time female workforce to escape the “mum’s army”, pin money ghetto that exploits them in the local economy. But times have changed and so have women’s expectations as well as economic circumstances. They expect recognition for a professional job well done and resent the patronising heart-of-gold label, which is slapped on to explain why they do so much for so little. The legal challenges have been many and various


and one of UNISON’s cases (Stafford and Banks 2001) went all the way to the House of Lords. It focused on the age-old question of whether school staff could claim JSA during unpaid weeks. The policy in benefit offices had always varied and the almost universal practice of averaging salary into 12 monthly payments had led to more confusion. UNISON struggled with the idea of supporting


a claim which admitted that school staff were not employed all year but when JSA was withdrawn it brought real hardship to many people, so there was really no choice. The five law lords that heard the petition declared that it was not a straightforward or easy case. Parliament could decide that a person was in “remunerative” work even if unpaid. They were split and the case was dismissed on the basis that term-time workers are “in” work if not “at” work. The opinion referred to the poverty trap school staff encounter when unable to find holiday work or sign on, especially those unable to claim family benefits. It recommended that the government find a solution. The process of local authority job evaluation has


not helped tackle the curse of the term-time contract. A national agreement for nursery nurses which gave them a full year contract and a 32.5-hour working week has been eroded to the point of extinction despite much spirited resistance locally. They have been victims of a levelling down process under the flag of a legal requirement to be treated the same as other local authority workers who usually work a 37-hour week for about 46 weeks. But there is a material difference in that the school year is a peculiarity in the world of work over which staff have no control. Despite headlines about gold-plated pensions


and off-the-scale benefits (the privileged few), local government remains an embarrassment of low pay with nearly 70 per cent of staff earning less than £21,000 a year. School staff are employed on these sadly lacking


pay scales and then suffer the double detriment of reduced pay and conditions through a term-time contract. Come the autumn term UNISON will be launching a new Justice for School Staff campaign and you can be sure that the injustice of the term- time contract will be at the heart of it.


• Christine Lewis is national officer with UNISON. Visit www.unison.org.uk/education


Business links


Sound experience: Students on the Academy work placement programme at the National Physical Laboratory in London try out one of the acoustic chambers


the workplace, information on healthy living, careers advice and work experience opportunities with the wealth of academic and professional expertise resident in a high performing Trust and its position as a major local employer.”


An education liaison officer works in close


partnership with schools to develop the programme and ensure that students know about different career options and get to experience working in a hospital environment. Kath Banfield is an infection control matron


and has taken part in several activities including presentations, workshops and a STEM “speed- dating” event. She said: “Working alongside schools and colleges is a complete removal from my comfort zone. However, the receptiveness of students when provided with a glimpse into the world of hospital infection control is both personally and professionally satisfying.” Elsewhere, the Trust was a champion for the first


year of delivery of the Diploma in Society, Health and Development and has supported the roll-out of the qualification ever since. Activities include NHS staff visiting the Diploma students at the college to do workshops, as well as the students coming to the hospital for tours and lectures. Harrogate Grammar School runs a programme with


the Trust for students who are interested in medically related careers. Teacher Julie Winters said: “For some, (it) confirmed that they had made the correct career plan. Others completely changed their ideas and are now considering foundation courses or changing A level choices to pursue new careers.” As a result of their success, the Trust has now


committed to fund its Education Liaison Programme for an extra three years. Visit www.hdft.nhs.uk


National Physical Laboratory Winner: Excellence in Work Experience (Large)


The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) is the UK’s largest applied physics research laboratory and is based in Richmond, London. The NPL, which was nominated by Richmond Education Business Partnership (REBP), is focused on improving the general public’s understanding of science. Judges in the Business Awards heard how the


NPL staff enjoy sharing their passion and enthusiasm for science with young people and the organisation recognises the benefits of supporting its staff to do


this. The NPL has also been offering work experience opportunities for 20 years. The NPL Academy was introduced in 2008 to give


GCSE students a structured opportunity to get the most out of a week at one of the UK’s leading scientific establishments. The Academy came about following a suggestion from a school and the NLP works with the REBP to co-ordinate the applications process. Members of staff throughout the organisation host


between 20 and 30 academy placements per year, in addition to a similar number of ad-hoc, summer placements and placements through the Nuffield Foundation. Over the three years that the Academy has been


running, 85 students have been offered placements (over 250 applied to join the academy). On top of this, the NPL still gives generic two-week placements throughout the year and other extended placements. The Academy Week involves science project work, scientific challenges, and preparing presentations. Visit www.npl.co.uk


Auto Technics Winner: Outstanding Commitment (SME)


Auto Technics is a garage located in Southport which employs just four people who work under manager Chris Cross. In their nomination, which was submitted by


the Sefton Education Business Partnership, Chris is described as being passionate about giving young people work-based opportunities. This passion and commitment in providing young people with an insight into the world of work is down to Chris’s own negative school experience due to his dyslexia. Auto Technics has been offering placements to the


young people of Sefton for over 15 years and during this time Chris has made a real difference to the lives of over 80 young people from both mainstream and special schools in Sefton and further afield. Chris interviews prospective work experience


candidates aged 14 to 16 and then oversees their time spent in the business. Auto Technics offers a two-week placement or an extended placement of one to two days a week for up to two academic years. Auto Technics has been involved in the development


of the programme to ensure that the young people are developing employability skills and are able to demonstrate competencies in communication, teamwork, organisation and reliability.


NDS Winner: Enterprise and Innovation (SME)


NDS, which creates technologies for use with digital television, has been working with their nominators, the Solent Education Business Partnership, for three years. Derek Nottingham, vice president and general


manager of the regional head office in Southampton, is passionate about science and feels that “a little knowledge can go a long way” in securing a successful career in the knowledge economy sector. The programme began with 20 NDS ambassadors


assigned to 10 partner schools and colleges and they soon found that each ambassador had been involved in a different way – as mentors, interviewers, curriculum advisors, expert speakers, enterprise facilitators, and after-school club helpers. Three years on and the aim is to include all Southampton schools and colleges. Throughout the programme to date, Derek and his


team have focused on encouraging young people to pursue sciences into further education and to develop students’ interests in IT and the knowledge economy. Students have benefited from a team of ambassadors


who are strong and positive role models. Teachers have benefited from business expertise, current information about knowledge transfer and emerging IT occupations, workplace visits, technology showcases and placements. Visit www.nds.com


SecEd Further information


The two remaining winners in the Business Awards 2010 were Sanctuary Arts of Sound in Watford, which won the Excellence in Work Experience prize for SMEs and Britvic Soft Drinks (with the British Soft Drinks Association) which won the Enterprise and Innovation prize for large companies. The former was featured in SecEd issue 267 (Thursday, November 25, 2010) and the latter in SecEd issue 275 (Thursday, February 24, 2011). Both of these editions can found online at www.sec-ed.co.uk (click on digital editions).


The IEBE Business Award 2010 winners In all, 18 education partnerships were recognised across three categories, with awards for both small and medium enterprises (SMEs) and large employers. More information on the work of the IEBE can be found at www.iebe.org.uk The six main Business Award winners are: Excellence in Work Experience, sponsored by McDonald’s • The National Physical Laboratory (Large) • Sanctuary Arts of Sound, Watford (SME) Enterprise and Innovation, sponsored by Edge • Britvic Soft Drinks and the British Soft Drinks Association (Large) • NDS (SME) Outstanding Commitment, sponsored by OCR • Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust (Large) • Autotechnics (SME)


14 SecEd • July 7 2011


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