Employer engagement

This toolkit is intended to be simple to use, helping Careers Leaders and others support and develop youth social action. the resource aims to enable more of their young people to be active citizens in their school or college and wider communities.

The West of England Careers Hub recently commissioned staff from Three Ways School to work with seven SEND schools to support and train the careers leaders in developing a local network of employers for work experience. As part of this, a range of editable resources were produced.

Kennedys virtual work experience will allow students to take the first step of their legal career with a global law firm that does things differently. The programme gives students the opportunity to complete legal work experience virtually, completing real life tasks created by Kennedys trainees and apprentices. 

Upskill Me is a multipurpose tool enabling students to build a digital record of their achievements (both academic and extracurricular), learn about and develop in-demand soft skills, and find live opportunities to help them become better prepared for the world after school. Each students’ portfolio can be downloaded or shared into a job or UCAS application via a sharable link.

This resource is designed to support Careers Leaders and other staff involved in the transition process from Key Stage 2 into Key Stage 3, exploring opportunities to embed careers activities and parental engagement across the full range of transition opportunities.

It takes you through the three phases:

1. Decision making (Y4,5,6) while children and parents /carers are still considering their options
2. Decision made (Y6) once the children have been allocated their secondary school
3. Started (Y7) once the children have started their secondary school.

These free resources have been developed by Accenture (national).

Resources are relevant, realistic training preparing learners for the entire journey of choosing the right career, finding a job and being successful in the workplace:

• Features innovative simulations providing a safe environment for learners to practice for real life situations e.g., a job interview, first day in a new job.
• Choose from 108 bite-sized, interactive and highly effective online learning modules and 26 downloadable activity packs to consolidate learning.

Teacher continuing professional development (CPD) delivered by employers can refer to a variety of professional development activities where an employer is the primary facilitator of training. But what impact do teacher placements have and what can we learn about lessons in best practice?

Talentino programmes have been helping to improve career outcomes for young people with a range of learning difficulties in a mixture of settings – special schools, mainstream schools, AP, PRU, SEMH, etc.

They also provide great opportunities for learning more, through their regular newsletters, annual SEND Careers Conference, and by publishing free resources.

Students can explore hundreds of careers with up to date labour market information. Free and inspiring careers talks and the opportunity to interact and engage with the top employers in the UK.

We connect young people with inspirational, eye opening virtual work experience opportunities with some of the largest employers both locally and nationally.

The Skills Builder Partnership brings together educators, employers and organisations around a common approach and mission: to support everyone to build the essential skills to succeed. The Impact Directory celebrates and shares the fantastic work of Skills Builder’s partners.

An example of how My Week of Work could be adapted and used in your school or college, Shrewsbury Academy structured the programme as  compulsory modules, which tutor groups can watch together and engage in follow up discussions, and optional modules which enables learners to choose the sectors and employers they are interested in.