WORK-RELATED LEARNING


North East-based social enterprise Skills to Shine helps secondary


students gain an insight into the world of work. Jane Samuels explains


vocational education foundation. It introduces students to the wide range of career options available, raising their awareness, aspirations, increasing motivation, drive and desire while instilling the belief that they can pursue and achieve in whatever career they choose. By introducing the Skills to Shine programme


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within a school, it meets the statutory requirements for careers education, offers good quality work experience, but also enhances the teaching and learning experience for students and teachers by making learning real, relevant and inspiring. Over the last decade, the founder of the programme


Lindsey Dunn has explored and defined new, innovative and creative ways of engaging the most hard to reach young people in learning. Out of these grassroot experiences, the Skills to Shine programme was developed. Ms Dunn explained: “Many of the young people


that I have worked closely with in the past had become disengaged with learning, but by adding the world of work into the curriculum we have shown them the relevance of what they are learning as well as helping them make an informed choice about future options and careers available to them.” The programme was designed with the aim of


introducing secondary students to the world of work, giving young people experiences that help them gain the knowledge, skills and experiences to make an informed choice of learning pathways through key stage 4 and beyond. The programme takes a whole-school approach to


embedding career learning into the curriculum. It is not just an add-on but a development of the curriculum. This is achieved by enhancing teaching and learning methods within the classroom over a period of time. It is based around a “Hop, Skip and Jump” model


enabling each school to embrace this form of teaching and learning methods at their own pace, appropriate to their teachers and students. The Hop: Students and teachers alike are often


unaware of the concept and benefits of future options and career learning, so they are introduced to it via one- off, large-scale enterprise challenges across a number of classes, year groups or schools to engage the learner and teachers. The Skip: Teachers then gain the know-how and


capabilities to deliver sustainable, careers teaching and learning through effective CPD. The Jump: Once the foundations have been laid


teachers identify a curriculum area that they would like to embed future options and careers within. Through the pilot project, Skills to Shine embedded careers education into the maths, science, history, English, technology and geography curricula. They did this by helping schools to identify appropriate businesses then supporting teachers and businesses to work together to plan and develop lesson plans for a period of at least a half-term. Students spent the next half or full term learning


within lessons as if they were working within the business area completing the task they had been set. They were required to learn the necessary skills, knowledge and gain experiences within their everyday lessons. During the pilot of the Skills to Shine programme,


students from Newcastle’s Excelsior Academy worked with community regeneration specialists Frank Haslam Milan. Students acted as the preferred contractor/ architect who had been tasked with submitting a full


KILLS TO Shine is an innovative programme that is bridging the gap between employers and education by introducing students to the world of work as part of the curriculum. The programme was launched with a pilot funded and supported by Edge, the


Skills to Shine


design brief, with internal and external recommendations for the construction of homes to house either asylum seekers and refugees, young parents, women fleeing violence, or young people aged 16 to 25. Within lessons students were mentored by


representatives from the business working with and learning from charter surveyors, planning officers, housing contractors, community support representatives and interior designers. They then presented their ideas and plans to a panel of experts before one team was “awarded the contract”. This project was run over the period of seven weeks


and covered the topic of housing traditionally taught as part of the geography curriculum. Andrea Scollen, a Frank Haslam Milan regeneration


specialist, said: “This type of training is integral to teaching in the future. It makes learning practical and accessible to all levels and abilities. It embraces the whole teaching curriculum adding practical hands-on teaching and learning to the classroom.” Another project saw students from Tyneside’s


Burnside Business and Enterprise College work with local small and medium enterprises from the creative industry. They were set the task of starting their own creative agency and were given a creative brief for North East tea-maker, Ringtons. Students spent the term being mentored by various professionals in a range of roles from the creative industry including designers, advertisers, journalists, e-commerce and PR professionals. The brief asked students to design and develop


packaging and point-of-sale for the Ringtons loose tea range. The students then answered the brief at a Dragons’ Den style event with one team being “awarded the contract” by Ringtons. This project was developed and designed to cover the English topic of non-fiction and media and ran for a 14-week period. Ms Dunn continued: “The programme is proving


to be very successful and having a fantastic impact on students’ motivation, aspiration and achievement. as well as helping them gain the knowledge, skills and experiences to make an informed choice of learning pathways through key stage 4 and beyond.” For schools that want to get started, Ms Dunn offers


the following advice: • Make career education teacher-led: this is the only way it can become sustainable. The success of the Skills to Shine model is that it is the development of teaching and learning methods within the classroom.


• Do not re-invent the curriculum, our programme enhances a part of the curriculum that was already scheduled to be taught.


• Put business at the heart of the learning. Including businesses from the very beginning ensures the programme achieves the learning outcomes that employers really need.


• Involve further and higher education providers. This helps students to realise and embrace future


options. Within our programme we arranged visits to or from providers so students could see progression routes into the industry.


After taking part in the Skills to Shine


programme, 96 per cent of the students felt they had an understanding of the knowledge, skills and experiences required to pursue a career in the industry they had been studying. Almost half of the students expressed a desire to


explore a job in this sector further and a large majority said that the programme had influenced their future options and career choices and helped them to feel more motivated about learning. At Edge, we believe that it is essential for young


people to gain an understanding of potential career options in order for them, with their parents, to make an informed choice of learning pathway through key stage 4 and beyond. The programme was a great success and the results were really positive.


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• Jane Samuels is project and operations manager at Edge, the vocational education foundation.


Further information


More information on running the Skills to Shine programme can be found at www.skillstoshine.co.uk and for more about the Edge Foundation visit www.edge.co.uk


Moral support: National Children’s Bureau Creativity, friendship and fun


Hilary Emery on the importance of allowing students


time for creativity, friendship and fun


WHEN YOU think back to your school days, what are your most vivid memories from the playground? Where did you make your friends? Where did you learn about teamwork, and coping with problems? And does your school now offer those same opportunities – or more – to its pupils? All young people need time and space to play.


They need time to make friends and to let off steam. This prepares them for class, and helps them learn how to get along with others of differing ages and backgrounds. These are skills that cannot be taught, certainly not in a single age, streamed classroom. And yet these are the very skills employers want


and that parents desire for their children – skills learnt best in the playground. When I started secondary school in Torquay 30


years ago, we had 90-minute lunch breaks as well as a morning break and time to play before and after school. We got to know people quickly in that first term and built up friendships not only in our own year group but across the school, including the much admired 6th-formers who wore their own clothes and seemed so grown-up. The nephew of a friend in year 10 has a short


break and an hour for lunch, most of which is taken up waiting in the canteen to be served. He does not know all of his own year group because of staggered timetables. In another secondary school, pupils have


Hands-on: Students from Excelsior Acaemy working with mentors from Frank Haslam Milan (top) and visiting the housing site for which they were producing a design brief


SecEd • January 19 2012


10-minute breaks in the morning and a staggered lunchtime with only 15 minutes for play. But at the beginning of the year parents were asked to pay £250 for year 7s to go on an outward-bound getting- to-know-you weekend. One pupil now in year 8 commented that she still knows very few children from other year groups and has few friendships outside her form group. How can this be right? Peter Blatchford, of the Institute of Education, has long studied breaktime experiences up to age


16 and concludes that playtimes are getting much shorter and that this is having a detrimental effect on young people’s experiences at school. He, along with other experts, took part in a study


last year, A World Without Play, on the impact of reducing time and space for play and recreation on mental and physical health, on gross and fine motor skills, on friendship making and – very importantly – on resilience. Their conclusions are clear – no play doesn’t just make Jack and Jill dull, but also harms their health, achievements and happiness. Sir Ken Robinson, education and creativity


thinker, suggests in his talk on changing education paradigms that children would benefit from being in mixed age groups, from greater freedoms and a curriculum they have some control over. A simple way of achieving this in school is by extending lunchtimes back to 90 minutes and giving children access to outdoor environments that encourage extended “free play”. Many primary schools are now benefiting


from introducing outdoor environments that encourage play and recreation beyond just football – social spaces for groups, stages and covered areas, challenging play structures including climbing and parkour, and stuff (usually scrap) to encourage imaginative games. In a recent evaluation of such schemes in


South Gloucestershire, headteachers describe the difference made to children’s fun and happiness, to their readiness to learn when they return to the classroom, and to their creativity and confidence in trying new ideas. Headteachers that have invested in breaktimes unanimously rate this investment as one of the best they have ever made. Play England is the national organisation for


children’s play. It is part of the National Children’s Bureau and it offers support for all organisations – including schools – to ensure all young people have time and space to play. If you would like to know more about how you can improve playtimes at school, get in touch.


• Dr Hilary Emery is chief executive of the National Children’s Bureau, a national charity which works in partnership with a range of educational charities to improve the lives of children. Visit www.antibullyingalliance.org.uk


Further information


A World Without Play: www.playengland.org.uk/a- world-without-play-an-expert-view.aspx


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