Home / Career Benchmarks: Primary Pilot

In conversation with Sian Browne, Head of Innovation and School to Works Lead at EY Foundation, about the progress of the North East Ambition Career Benchmarks: Primary Pilot

I’ve just returned from my latest visit to the North East to see, in person, the impact the North East Ambition Career Benchmarks: Primary Pilot is having in our participating schools.

I can’t believe the first term has finished and we are well into term two! It was fantastic to see how the programme is already having an impact, with some terrific stories emerging from the 70 schools taking part.

We’re delivering the pilot in partnership with the North East Local Enterprise Partnership (North East LEP). The aim is to test how the eight Good Career Guidance Benchmarks, which form part of statutory guidance for secondary schools in England about how to deliver impactful and effective careers guidance, can be adapted for a primary school setting.

The pilot was launched in recognition of the fact children can start to make career limiting decisions as early as five years old. We hope to change that by sowing the seeds of ambition from an early age.

One highlight from my day in the North East was a visit to Bothal Primary School, which focuses on STEM learning. The school is an inspiring example of new, innovative thinking to engage pupils and industry. Incredibly, the school has a whole wing devoted to STEM, with great facilities, such as 3D printers.

Local and global businesses are providing support, with a BMW room next to the AkzoNobel inspiration suite. This is providing a great environment for pupils to understand the skills needed for different careers and to realise there is more to getting a good job than academic qualifications.

My next stop was Lingey House Primary School, which is developing new ways to support ‘career related learning’ through workbooks. These are used to demonstrate the huge range of career options available in different subject areas. For example, working in creative arts and design can lead to becoming a fashion designer, a photographer, a fine artist, a make-up artist, an animator, a dancer, an illustrator and many more. All these roles are described in detail, setting out what the job entails, the qualifications needed and salary expectations.

To bring career options to life, I saw that lots of schools in the pilot are inviting people working in different roles to come in and talk about their job. It’s a great way to engage and inspire the next generation.

A final example of how a school is responding to the challenge of building interest in future work is Percy Main Primary School in North Shields. They are working with a local museum to give the children an opportunity to role play a wide variety of the jobs available within the sector from archaeologist to receptionist. Their parents were then invited in to see their children in action, which is so important in terms of building involvement and engagement in this project.

I can’t wait until my next trip in April to find out what happens next in the schools I’ve been lucky enough to visit. But in the meantime, please look out for more wonderful case studies from this project. They’ll be hosted on the North East Ambition website and available on the EY Foundation social media channels.

The North East Ambition Career Benchmarks: Primary Pilot is supported by funding from the European Social Fund, EY Foundation and the Local Growth Fund.

Home / Career Benchmarks: Primary Pilot

Michelle Rainbow, Skills Director at the North East LEP, provides an update on the North East Ambition Career Benchmarks: Primary Pilot

In 2015, the North East LEP began work on a pilot programme that would go on to directly influence statutory guidance for every school in England on how to deliver effective and impactful careers guidance.

Fast forward to 2019 and we’re now running a second pilot in the North East LEP region, this time focusing on primary schools.

The North East Ambition Career Benchmarks: Primary Pilot aims to sow the seeds of ambition from an early age in recognition of the fact children can start to make career limiting decisions as early as five years old.

In partnership with the EY Foundation, a charity that supports young people from low income backgrounds get into work, we’re working with 70 primary schools from across the North East. The purpose of the project is to test how the eight Good Career Guidance Benchmarks can be adapted for a primary school setting.

Since launching the pilot, each of the schools has used our North East Ambition online audit tool to assess their current careers education provision and identify which, if any, of the Benchmarks they are delivering.

Using this information, they have then gone on to develop an individual action plan that outlines how they will implement and achieve the Benchmarks.

The North East LEP has supported them through this process by providing expert help and advice in the form of two primary facilitators that work directly with the schools. We’ve also arranged two area meetings giving pilot schools the chance to come together, share ideas, discuss best practice and access resources, toolkits and learning to help them deliver their action plans.

It’s been fascinating to see the progress that the schools have made at this early stage of the pilot and we are delighted with the level of commitment from the staff at each of the schools, including from Head Teachers and Governors.

We’re seeing schools integrate careers education into its existing work, which is a great way to deliver the Benchmarks. Our facilitators have also supported teachers to introduce careers into lesson plans and help students understand the range of jobs available to them. For example, pupils at Newsham Primary School in Blyth worked with ambassadors from Blyth STEM Hub and the Greenpower Foundation to help build an electric car. Students at Percy Main Primary School in North Shields learnt how to be museum curators as part of a visit to Segedunum Roman Fort, and pupils at Kings Priory School in Tynemouth enjoyed a careers event with over 25 activities that explored different job roles – from chocolatiers to engineers.

It’s also been great to see our primary and secondary schools beginning to work together to support achievement of the Benchmarks and this whole school, and collaborative, approach is a really positive sign for the pilot’s success.

In all, we’ve had a fantastic start to the North East Ambition Career Benchmarks: Primary Pilot and I’d like to thank all 70 primary schools for their commitment, hard work and enthusiasm.

It will be exciting to see what progress we’ve made in another six months.

If you’d like to learn more about our North East Ambition Career Benchmarks: Primary Pilot, please visit www.northeastambition.co.uk. You can also email us with any questions via [email protected].

By Michelle Rainbow
Skills Director at the North East Local Enterprise Partnership

The North East Ambition Career Benchmarks: Primary Pilot is supported by funding from the European Social Fund, EY Foundation and the Local Growth Fund.

Home / Career Benchmarks: Primary Pilot

In conversation with Sian Browne, School to Work Lead for the EY Foundation, about the North East Ambition Career Benchmarks: Primary Pilot

Here in the North East, we’re leading the way in testing how we can offer inspiring careers guidance to primary school pupils.

The North East Ambition Career Benchmarks: Primary Pilot takes the Government’s Good Career Guidance Benchmarks, originally developed for secondary schools, and adapts them for primaries.

Over two years, 70 pilot schools will test how they can implement and achieve the benchmarks; examining what works, where extra support might be needed and what impact the work has at a pupil and whole-school level.

The project is being led by the North East Local Enterprise Partnership, supported by the EY Foundation and the European Social Fund.

Sian Browne, School to Work Lead for the EY Foundation, describes her recent visit to the North East to see some of the work that primary schools are already doing.

“The name ‘career enabling primary pilot’ is a bit of a mouthful, but it is something that I believe will have a massive impact. So, what does it mean? Put simply, it is a new programme designed to help children better understand possible future job opportunities available to them. It seems a long way off, but choices made at primary age can be crucial in shaping their future career.

“Developing this project with the North East Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP) has been a passion of mine for almost two years, so the chance to see it in action was a huge thrill.

“Arriving in Newcastle, I spent a couple of days with our fantastic facilitator team. We started off with an inspiring meeting with the teachers who will be leading on delivering the pilot in their schools. Each of them showed impressive commitment, asking lots of questions, bringing loads of ideas and sharing good experiences.

“That was followed by a visit to a primary school taking part in the pilot. I met with a careers leader and headteacher who are already achieving great results with their pupils by introducing careers into their curriculum – so they seemed to already be one step ahead! They also talked to us of their meetings with interesting people from different fields of work, who shared their experiences with the children, including a geophysicist and a female naval surgeon.

“Perhaps my favourite moment was when I saw the pupils setting out their aspirations in their career books, with one young reception pupil saying they wanted to be a “tooth fairy”, a job I certainly did on many occasions!

“Next stop was the global automotive supplier Unipres, who hosted 72 students. Watching the young people try out virtual reality to load trucks and donning their special protective gear provided a glimpse of the future and was so uplifting. The apprentices spent time with each of them and were terrific role models. I’m certain some of those pupils now have their eye on an engineering apprenticeship when they get older.

“After so much time in the planning it was brilliant to see the early impact on all the children I met. We are so looking forward to working with them and their teachers over the next two years as they continue along the journey of improving careers enabling experiences.”

For more information visit northeastambition.co.uk.