Recognising that exposure to career opportunities is crucial for young people, the partnership's first activity is an initiative called "Opportunity Days." This will take young employees in local and regional businesses who have entered the workforce through diverse paths into schools to interact with Year 7 students. It will be piloted in Autumn 2018 with a few selected schools and rolled out to more schools across East Anglia in 2019.
What's needed?
Volunteers to attend a school and give an informal talk/Q&A about:
- What they did at school
- Good and bad decisions they made along the way – their journey to where they are now
- How they ended up doing what they are doing now
- What is a ‘normal’ day like? Ideally these employees would be:
- Relatively recently recruited and early on in their careers.
- From the local area
- Have some experience or interest in engaging with secondary school age students
- Reasonably confident in presenting (although full briefing will be given and advice about how to pitch it would be available)
Any interested and suitable employees could be involved in the pilot!
Importantly, it would great to show the students a diverse range of routes into local employment – ideally, each Opportunity Day would involve one employee who has gone into the company as an apprentice or similar and one graduate.
How will the sessions work?
The structure/length/timings for each of the pilot Opportunity Days differs slightly – a specific briefing about each event would be given to the employees involved. The employee would of course be free to structure their session as they wish (and may have past experiences/presentations to draw on).
The basic idea however is:
- Introduction – who you are, your background, your job, how you got there. Some slides with photos often help to engage/bring the story alive. (c. 15mins)
- Q&A with the students (teacher or Accelerate East Project Manager to chair) (c. 10mins)
- Take away advice for the students – 3 top tips/advice for the Year 7s at this stage of their education and going forwards. (c. 5mins)
The employee would be accompanies at all times by either/both school teacher(s) and/or the Accelerate East Project Manager.
Dates and locations
- Tuesday 13 November (09.30–13.30): Attleborough Academy, Norwich Road, Attleborough NR17 2AJ
- Friday 16 November (time TBC): Wayland Academy, Merton Road, Watton, Thetford IP25 6AZ
- Date tbc but likely mid-Nov: North Cambridge Academy - Arbury Rd, Cambridge CB4 2JF
- Date tbc but likely mid-Nov: Samuel Ward Academy - Chalkstone Way, Haverhill CB9 0LD
- Date tbc but likely md-Nov: Newmarket Academy - Exning Rd, Newmarket CB8 0EB
- Tuesday 4 December (time TBC): Thomas Gainsborough School, Wells Hall Road, Great Cornard, Sudbury CO10 0NH
Would you like to get involved?
Interested employees should (after gaining approvals/permission from line manager/organisation as appropriate) email the Project Manager, Claire Nellany, as soon as possible and confirm:
- Which date/school you wish to be involved in
- Your name, job title and brief description of how you got there/what you now do
- Any previous experience/ideas you have for delivering this sort of session, or any further briefing/advice you would need.
Thank you so much!