VIEWS & OPINION Embrace the New Year with purpose Comment by GITANJALI BHATTACHARYA, Director of Lumina Tutoring


As those in the education profession reflect on the year’s accomplishments and are hopefully setting new goals, it can be easy for those dark winter mornings to quickly dampen that well-intended New Year optimism. But there is one simple resolution that takes the existing skills of teachers and puts them to incredible use without too much of a heavy lift: volunteering. Just 45 minutes a week, working one-to- one with a care-experienced young person,


is all that it takes to make a truly positive impact. We know this through running The Lumina Tutoring Programme over the past five years. By offering personalised support, teachers from state maintained schools, academies, or the independent sector, can help to transform the lives of children living in care. They can help bridge the gap for disadvantaged pupils who need extra assistance, ensuring they do not fall behind. Dedicating this time can not only help a student pass their GCSEs or A Levels – but it can also encourage them to surpass expectations. In addition to supporting their academic attainment, volunteer teachers offer transformative mentorship and stability to the lives of 10- to 18-year-olds who have experienced significant disruption to schooling due to personal circumstances.


Professional growth


Volunteering is also an excellent opportunity for teachers to grow professionally. It allows educators to develop new teaching strategies that can be brought back to their classrooms. Working one-on-one or in small groups provides a different dynamic than a traditional classroom setting. It encourages teachers to be more adaptive and creative with their methods. We have found that teachers who volunteer often find they return to


their classrooms with fresh perspectives and renewed enthusiasm for the profession. The exchange of ideas can lead to innovative solutions and enhanced teaching techniques that benefit all pupils. Stronger communities


By volunteering, teachers also contribute towards building stronger, more resilient communities. When pupils succeed academically, they are more likely to pursue higher education and better career opportunities, which in turn benefits our communities. Lumina began by serving the London Borough of Harrow and has rapidly expanded. due to its success working alongside communities. We now partner with multiple local authorities in the South of England, including Barnet, Brent, Ealing, Hillingdon, Wandsworth, Cambridgeshire, Oxfordshire, and Hampshire. But we don’t intend to stop there. The programme’s proven model means we are ready to support looked-after children across the country to access transformative tutoring services – all we need is more teachers to volunteer just 45 minutes a week in term time. Personal fulfilment


Teaching is undoubtedly a rewarding profession, but it can also be demanding and at times, overwhelming. Volunteering brings a refreshing change of pace and a sense of personal fulfilment. Knowing you are making a significant difference to a student’s life can be incredibly motivating and satisfying. Additionally, engaging in volunteer work can have personal mental health and wellbeing benefits. It can reduce stress and provide a sense of purpose. For teachers who may feel burned out, volunteering can reignite their passion for education and remind them of the reasons they chose this profession in the first place. Teachers interested in joining the Lumina Tutoring programme can sign up via the website (www.lumina.org.uk) where they can learn more about the simple yet impactful role they can play in shaping the lives of children in care.


The future of careers advice Comment by JO CARRINGTON, Head of Guidance at Morrisby


The work of careers advisers is more than just suggesting a career, subject or course to somebody, and leaving them to it. Good careers education, information, advice and guidance (CEIAG) prepares people for the world of work, giving them the tools to understand themselves, and manage and thrive in their career; at its best, it serves to break down inequalities and promote social mobility, and support the economic and social fabric of our society.


However, for all the good that careers interventions achieve, careers education has


long been the target of budget cuts, low pay, and has had little to no time allocated to it within schools, colleges, and the world of work. In addition, and unsurprisingly given these challenges, the careers industry faces a recruitment crisis; 23% of the careers workforce are likely to leave the profession within two years, due to low pay, high stress, and a lack of progression opportunities.


With this declining workforce and the issues that advisers encounter, what does the future of careers guidance look like? How can the industry, and the professionals working within it, thrive and appropriately help those people that careers advisers are so keen to support? There are many potential future scenarios, but in all of these AI (especially large language models (LLMs) will need to play its part. It should not replace the skilled, human-centred guidance aspect of an adviser’s role. But it can, will, and does, support the work an adviser does around career education, information and advice.


This could be quite transformative for the work career development professionals (CDPs) do, and the reach they have.


With the current lack of time allocated for careers advisers to engage January 2025


meaningfully with students, AI can help identify those young people who need the most support, allowing advisers to target their precious time effectively. Imagine an AI triage tool that asks students about their career thoughts, where they are in making their next decision, or gets them to consider what they would like to get out of a 1:1 careers interaction; precious information for an adviser, which can take up a large percentage of a guidance appointment to establish. The AI tool can give students relevant information and advice along the way; again, saving time in the guidance intervention, allowing a CDP to employ their specialist guidance skills. The AI would rate the level of support needed for each student, informing the adviser, who would assign the appropriate time to support them.


But how will AI know what level of support is needed? And how do we ensure it gets it right?


As with most industries, AI will change the way CDPs work. New roles will emerge. A role in checking the triage-rating the AI assigns to students; perhaps this is a school-based careers professional who reviews the triage level, given the knowledge they have about the individual, and sends a report to the AI company, who can refine their processes. CDPs need to be involved in ensuring the guardrails put around the LLMs give appropriate and accurate careers information and advice. Working in EdTech, they should advise product managers and software developers about best practice within careers, which steers the functionality, messaging, information, and advice given within the AI tool. They will also audit the AI’s outputs, making suggestions for improvements and alerting developers of inappropriate or incorrect responses.


No AI interventions should happen without the careers adviser, who uses their person-centred skills to coach and guide students and adults through their career and education decisions. For all its challenges, this is an exciting time to work within the careers profession.


www.education-today.co.uk 31


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