Partnerships
Who to invite In the rst few years, we opened our doors to any business that wanted to attend, with the advantage that we had some very vibrant discussions across the various sectors of the local economy, and businesses had some excellent opportunities for cross-pollination. Latterly, however, we’ve themed the meetings around the skills and occupations in individual sectors – engineering, sport, creative arts – in order to make them more career-focused for the students attending. We still invite all business partners, but inevitably it is mainly the businesses within that sector that come along. What we might lose in breadth, we gain in depth, with extraordinary opportunities for students to explore their chosen eld. It’s been interesting over the years
to see the number of organisations who get wind of what we’re doing and either pop along or ask to become partners. These range from training and apprenticeship providers, to church outreach teams, to charitable organisations such as the National Citizen Service or Alcohol Concern – all of whom have an interest in the wellbeing and development of young people. If you read my article in the spring
issue of FundEd Magazine, you will have seen a list of colleagues that I suggested should be involved, such as your curriculum manager or careers coordinator. Invite them along. (Ed’s note: read the previous feature It’s Not All About The Money at
funded.org.uk/magazine.) As our networking events are now
themed, we also invite a range of subject specialists along. For example, teachers of STEM subjects come to our engineering meetings, the PE department to our sport meetings, and the art, dance, drama, and music departments to our creative arts meetings. It’s important to the success of any projects arising from these meetings that teachers get to know the businesses involved and build up their own relationships with them.
Follow a format Our meetings now have a particular rhythm to them, and one that keeps things simple and open to exibility.
46 SUMMER 2016 FundEd
We start at 8am with an informal breakfast of bacon or egg rolls, pastries, and coffee or tea served up to attendees as they arrive. We allow half an hour for arrivals, breakfast, and networking, before kicking off with ten to twenty minutes of introductions, updates on projects (or proposals for new projects), and any other business. Depending on numbers, we’ll then break down into two groups in adjoining rooms. We always aim to have two to four main speakers who will talk for ve minutes around a theme of careers in their particular sectors. These speakers are simply partners who are willing to stand up and share their experiences and expertise with the students. After this, we allocate partners to tables around the rooms and give the students a series of ten-minute opportunities in small groups to visit three or four businesses to nd out what they do. At about 9:30am, we regroup for feedback and a debrief; the nal twenty minutes are for informal discussion, networking and a top-up! Our rst meeting of the academic
year is just for businesses, and we ask both the Headteacher and the Economic Development team at the Borough Council to give a ‘state of the nation’ address on the school’s recent exam results and the town’s latest economic developments, including employment gures and skills and recruitment gaps. We always draw up and circulate
an agenda in advance. It’s a good way of attracting the businesses if they know what’s being covered.
Set an ice-breaker task In the rst few years, before we changed the nature of the meetings and started inviting students, we felt the need to involve attendees in useful discussions about business
and education engagement. These were useful meetings that helped forge the direction of the partnership and established a great deal of trust and openness between the businesses and the school. The fact that meetings were hosted by teachers meant that there were, inevitably, tasks to be carried out, questions to be discussed and mini presentations to be delivered in response. The questions were quite straightforward such as ‘What skills do you feel applicants for jobs lack, and how could schools deliver them more effectively?’. Some tasks gave businesses an idea of current educational practice, including an exercise in marking students’ work so that it met the standards of the exam board. This was an eye-opener for the businesses!
Feedback from partners Overwhelmingly, our business partners all think that the partnerships programme is a wonderful idea! In particular, they often discover an unanticipated pleasure in working with our students and are surprised at how bright, polite, well-presented, and interested they are: ‘Just the type of young person we want working for us!’. I also think that our partners, in turn, feel proud of what they’ve achieved and nd it hugely rewarding to share their hard-earned experience and expertise with the next generation. Even though it can so often be about the bottom line for businesses, our partners really do understand the importance of the wellbeing of young people and the value of investing their energies into the community in which they live.
Sam Baker is Head of Business Studies and Work-Related Learning at Mark Rutherford School in Bedford (1,236 pupils). He has established an award-winning education-business partnership programme with over 150 local and national organisations engaged in various ways in the life of the school and its students.
Coming up next issue… Build on the initial success of your partnerships scheme to find and sieze opportunities...
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