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International delegation visits North East England to see positive impact of Gatsby Benchmarks on careers education

A group of international careers leaders from Hong Kong have visited North East England to see how the good career guidance benchmarks have been successfully embedded within the region, and how they are improving outcomes for young people across the North East.

Organised by The Gatsby Foundation in partnership with the North East Local Enterprise Partnership (North East LEP), the visit saw career leaders, school principals and education experts from Hong Kong spend one week visiting schools and employers across the North East to see the good career guidance benchmarks in action.

Developed by The Gatsby Foundation, the good career guidance benchmarks are a set of eight benchmarks that serve as a framework for world-class careers provision. The North East region hosted the original Gatsby Benchmarks pilot between 2015 and 2017. In 2017, the Benchmarks were adopted as part of the government’s Careers Strategy for schools and colleges in England.

The recent visit from the Hong Kong delegation follows the implementation of an adapted set of 10 benchmarks. In Hong Kong, an initial pilot involving six schools has now expanded to 110 schools; approximately 25% of all schools in Hong Kong.

The group of careers leaders were invited by The Gatsby Foundation to see how deep rooted and embedded the Benchmarks are in the North East, and the positive impact this is having on the aspirations and career outcomes of the region’s students.

The visit will also form part of an international case study that will support Gatsby’s work on their ‘Good Career Guidance: The Next Ten Years’ report.

Ryan Gibson, Senior Adviser for Careers at The Gatsby Foundation and former National Facilitator of the Gatsby Pilot in the North East said “It was a pleasure to welcome career leaders, school principals and education experts from Hong Kong to England to learn from the excellent practice in our schools and colleges.

“The Benchmarks are based on international evidence of what works, and they represent a world class standard of careers provision. We are delighted to now be inspiring approaches in other countries.”

L-R Ryan Gibson, Senior Adviser for Careers at The Gatsby Foundation and Stephen Yip, Director (Schools) for the Hong Kong Benchmarks programme

Matt Joyce, Regional Lead: North East Ambition at the North East Local Enterprise Partnership, said: “Having delivered the original pilot, and now in our role supporting all schools and colleges in the region to achieve the good career guidance benchmarks, the North East LEP is in a unique position to show others how successful the Benchmarks can be in creating an institution-wide approach to delivering high quality careers education and guidance.

“As well as showcasing the great work happening in schools and colleges here in the North East, it’s been fantastic to learn from our international colleagues about the work they are doing in Hong Kong.

“A really important part of this visit has been demonstrating how the good career guidance benchmarks fit with the wider skills agenda; supporting students to be work ready and delivering the talent and skills employers need.

“It’s been a pleasure to host the delegation and show them the transformational impact of the good career guidance benchmarks.”

Stephen Yip, Director (Schools) for the Hong Kong Benchmarks programme said “This visit brings the next generation of career leaders to North East England to learn new ideas, strategies and the effective whole institution approach needed to effectively achieve the good career guidance benchmarks.

“Schools and colleges in North East England have taken a remarkable step up across all benchmark areas over the last three years. Such a leap is achieved because of both frontline practices and the overall infrastructure provided by the North East LEP careers hub; to ensure youngsters in the region receive the best careers education for future paths.

“We are all inspired by the best practices demonstrated by the visited schools and will implement them to our contexts with little hesitation. Perhaps the most impressive part of the journey is the confidence and the sense of agency shown by the students upon their career-related future. This is indeed the power of The Gatsby Benchmarks.”

Joanne Maw, CEO of Aspire North East Multi Academy Trust, said: “It was a privilege to welcome the careers professionals and school leaders from Hong Kong to Southmoor Academy and have the opportunity to share our whole school approach to careers education.

“Staff benefitted greatly from the opportunity to showcase their work and answer a range of thought-provoking questions. It was inspiring to meet such a dedicated team of leaders who are deeply committed to a holistic approach to student progression.”

To illustrate the importance of employee engagement in delivering the Benchmarks, the North East LEP arranged a visit to international energy company, Equinor, which has a base at the Port of Tyne in South Tyneside.

Tom Nightingale. North East Stakeholder Manager at Equinor, said: “It was fantastic to support the North East LEP and host the delegation from Hong Kong at Dogger Bank Wind Farm operations and maintenance base. Sharing knowledge around skills initiatives with other countries is essential to develop knowledge around areas such as Gatsby Benchmarks, where the region is already leading in delivery.”

Matt Joyce continued: “During the visit we were able to demonstrate the impact of the Benchmarks and the crucial role of career hubs in supporting schools and colleges to create world-class careers provision.

“The delegation has left with an understanding of the importance of positioning careers not only as part of education, but as a lever for economic growth.”

Through its North East Ambition programme, the North East LEP is supporting all North East schools and colleges to achieve the good career guidance benchmarks by 2024.

For more information about the good career guidance benchmarks, visit www.northeastambition.co.uk.

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Your opportunity to shape careers education for students in the North East

By Denis Heaney, Enterprise Adviser Hub Lead at the North East Local Enterprise Partnership


It is quite common to hear employers expressing concerns that young people joining the workforce don’t have the skills businesses require, and recognise a disconnect between the skills they acquire through school, college and universities, and those needed by the world of work.

Thankfully, things are changing. There are more opportunities for industry to work in partnership with academia to influence curriculum development, provide workplace experiences, and educate young people about the careers opportunities available to them.

One of the most successful approaches has been the creation of the Enterprise Adviser Network; a group of passionate and dedicated business leaders that work with schools and colleges to bridge the gap between education and employment, and work with teachers and young people to deliver quality careers education.

Here in the North East, we currently have 191 business leaders in our Enterprise Adviser Network, but we’re looking to boost that number and partner more industry professionals with local schools and colleges.

One of the most common questions I get from businesses when speaking to them about joining the Enterprise Adviser Network is, ‘how much of my time will it take?’ Well the good news is, no matter how much, or how little, time you have available, we can make it meaningful. I think employers often underestimate the positive influence they can make by engaging with education. It doesn’t matter if it’s 1% of your time or 100%, the support we offer ensures your time is impactful.

Being an Enterprise Adviser is about bringing like-minded people together to make a difference in education. And how people choose to do that can be very different.

We’ve had Enterprise Advisers join the Board of Governors to influence at a strategic level, and we’ve also supported Enterprise Advisers to consult on careers programmes in schools. Some Enterprise Advisers have provided a mentoring role to teachers and students, whilst others have helped deliver curriculum-based projects. Whilst the pathways have all been very different, the end result is always the same; better careers education for students, which leads to better outcomes. 

An increasingly popular area of support is improving teachers’ understanding of industry by providing time in the workplace. Teachers – along with parents/guardians – are the biggest influencers when it comes to careers guidance. By helping teachers better understand the local economy, they are more equipped to connect learning to the world of work.

Our job at the North East Local Enterprise Partnership is to ensure the engagement businesses have with schools and colleges is as much about meeting business needs, as it is improving career outcomes for students. Employers have the opportunity to influence what teaching looks like, and how the curriculum can deliver the talent and skills they need to fill the jobs of the future.

I very much see the Enterprise Adviser Network as the vehicle for industry to engage with education.

If you or your business would like to find out more about joining the Enterprise Adviser Network and inspiring the next generation about the amazing career opportunities the North East, we’d love to hear from you. You can complete an Expression of Interest via our website – www.northeastambition.co.uk – or email [email protected].

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Success for Opportunity North East Careers Pilot

A ground-breaking pilot has demonstrated the importance of targeted and personalised Careers Education, Information, Advice and Guidance (CEIAG) in improving post-16 destinations for young people.

The two-year pilot project, led by the North East Local Enterprise Partnership (LEP), was part of the Department for Education’s (DfE) Opportunity North East programme and commitment to improve education and boost productivity in the North East.

Overall, 28 schools were involved – 16 in the North East LEP area. Each school identified up to 30 pupils identified as having an increased risk of becoming NEET (Not in Education, Employment or Training).

Many of the pupils involved were from a disadvantaged background or had special educational needs, both indicators of being at higher risk of becoming NEET at the end of Year 11.

The LEP developed and commissioned an intensive and targeted offer of personalised advice and guidance for young people in each ONE Vision school to help them to make the best of their strengths, interests and aspirations, aiming to improve the destinations of these young people at the end of Year 11.

At the end of the project, the young people involved knew more about how to find a good career; they had a greater focus on their chosen sectors; and they had clear plans on how to achieve their goals.

The project saw a 113% average improvement across the 12 key areas of underpinning careers-based knowledge, while the percentage of students with no “vision” of their future career sector fell from 13% to 6%.

An increase in the number of pupils with a post- 16 plan increased from 75% to 98% and some 97% of students are predicted to be in education, employment or training.

In addition, an overwhelming majority of the young people involved in the project reported being happy in their chosen post-16 destination.

Neil Willis, Regional Lead for Education Challenge at the North East LEP, said: “One of our underlying aims was to show that CEIAG needs to be targeted and personalised which is particularly important for pupils that are associated with being at risk of becoming NEET. Pressures on the current system can make this approach challenging in schools.

“For many students, if they don’t get on the right footing at the end of Year 11, it can impact on their progress in future life so ONE Vison enabled us to test an approach to address this.

“We have demonstrated that regular contact with a careers adviser, coupled with accurate data recording and highly-personalised interventions, leads to significant increases in a student’s capacity to make the informed decisions needed to secure a good career pathway.

“As well as improving destinations for young people, this also delivers considerable wider economic and social benefits.”

Nationally, young people who become NEET are likely to experience a range of other negative outcomes, triggering wider economic costs over £77,000 each in direct lifetime costs to public finances and over £144,000 in wider lifetime costs to the economy and wider community.

Every percentage point reduction in NEET pupils across the 15 ONE Vision secondary schools has the potential to save public finances £1.85million and over £3.46million in wider lifetime costs to the economy and community.

The findings of the pilot, which was supported by the Oxford University Careers Service, will be shared with the DfE, local authorities and careers education leaders.

The Opportunity North East report can be viewed here.

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New report shows improving career guidance in schools and colleges leads to better student outcomes and attitudes, and raises aspirations

Improving career guidance in secondary schools and colleges can lead to better student outcomes, while also raising aspirations and increasing engagement with education, according to the final evaluation of a four year pilot.

The evaluation, carried out by the International Centre for Guidance Studies (iCeGS) at the University of Derby, followed 16 schools and colleges in the North East of England as they implemented a career guidance framework known as the Gatsby Benchmarks. Findings within the report include:

  • Student Career readiness scores (a measure of preparedness for work) showed significant increases in all year groups across the four years of the evaluation
  • The greater the number of Benchmarks held, the greater the number of GCSE passes at A*-C/9-4 were achieved by each learner, even when gender, ethnicity, SEND status, FSM status, looked after status and Ofsted rating were statistically controlled for.
  • Between 2015 and 2019, learners at pilot colleges became increasingly more likely to achieve their learning outcomes, compared to learners at local colleges or all other colleges.

As well as this, teaching staff observed real changes in learner’s engagement in class. There was a reduction in learners querying the point of particular subjects or topics because they understood the relationship between knowledge/skills and their future career. Employers supporting the pilot also said that young people were better able to articulate their career ideas and talk about themselves, and were better informed about their options as well as the types of jobs available.

The pilot, begun in 2015, was set up to test how schools and colleges could use the Gatsby Benchmarks for Good Career Guidance and what the impact would be on their students. The North East region was selected, and the North East Local Enterprise Partnership ran the pilot along with the Gatsby Foundation.

Following early results from the pilot, the Government adopted the Gatsby Benchmarks into their 2017 Careers Strategy for all schools and colleges in England, and has recently renewed its commitment to having the Benchmarks as a part of national education strategy in the ‘Skills for Jobs’ White Paper.

Alistair Cummins-MacLeod, Director of Student Experience, Engagement & Wellbeing at East Durham College, said: “The pilot and the Gatsby Benchmarks have helped raise careers education to a new level. Our students have certainly benefited from this. They are more aware of the opportunities and can make really informed decisions about what they want to do next.”

Dr Jill Hanson, Lead Author on the evaluation, said: “Following the pilot schools and colleges for four years has been incredibly exciting. We have watched them implement excellent career guidance programmes and were privileged to be able to see the difference this has made to the schools and colleges, to the staff and most importantly to the students. This pilot has had a positive impact on the knowledge, attitudes, skills and aspirations of students in the North East and it is important that this progress continues across the country.”

Beth Jones, Head of Career programmes at the Gatsby Foundation, said: “Careers guidance should never be seen as an ‘add-on’ to school or college learning. What this evaluation makes clear is the difference made to the lives of students when Careers as a priority.  As schools and colleges around the country continue to work towards the Benchmarks, we hope this evaluation will show them the amazing impact their work can have on their students.”

Michelle Rainbow, Skills Director, North East Local Enterprise Partnership said: “I was so proud when I read the evaluation – to hear the Pilot described as transformational and to know that the North East played such a pivotal role, was such an honour. We’ve always believed that the right careers education can have lifelong rewards for young people to see that has been recognised independently today is fantastic. We continue to keep the Benchmarks at the heart of our North East Ambition programme as a sign of our support and commitment to them.”

Ryan Gibson, Facilitator of the pilot at the North East LEP, said: “It was a privilege to lead the pilot, to work directly with schools and colleges and to see the transformational impact of the Benchmarks. The North East LEP, the pilot schools and colleges and the individual career leaders involved developed an approach that now underpins our national work towards ensuring that each and every young person benefits from world class careers provision.”

Image: Students at Harton Academy learning about careers.

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In conversation with Matt Joyce, Regional Lead – North East Ambition at the North East Local Enterprise Partnership, about National Careers Week

Careers education and guidance, and how it is delivered in schools and colleges, has been transformed in recent years.

The introduction of the Good Career Guidance Benchmarks and the closer relationship between industry and education has given young people a better understanding of the world of work and the various pathways open to them, including apprenticeships and traineeships.

Careers education and guidance has become an increasingly important part of school and college curriculums; helping students make more informed decisions about their future lives.

This National Careers Week at the North East LEP, we’re celebrating some of the ways our schools and colleges are putting a focus on careers guidance to improve opportunities for young people and ensure businesses have access to a skilled and talented workforce for the future.

Launched in 2017, North East Ambition builds on the success of the Good Career Guidance Benchmarks pilot in the North East LEP region by supporting every school and college to adopt, implement and achieve the eight benchmarks by the year 2024. We’re currently working with more than 160 schools and colleges as part of the region-wide initiative to help improve outcomes for all young people, regardless of their starting points or backgrounds. This includes helping to support the region’s SEND schools and ensuring employers recognise the value SEND students can bring to their organisations.

Within North East Ambition are a number of programmes designed to improve careers guidance in schools and colleges. The Enterprise Adviser Network, for example, embeds business leaders into secondary schools and colleges to help shape the delivery of careers education. More than 140 business leaders are enrolled on the programme, representing a diverse range of industries key to the North East LEP’s Strategic Economic Plan.

Our Education Challenge programme currently works with five secondary schools and one college to support teachers, school leaders and governors to integrate an understanding of the world of work and career opportunities into the curriculum. The North East LEP’s successful partnership with Ford Next Generation Learning has helped bring the workplace and classroom closer together, giving students the chance to work with local employers on real life projects.

All of this work has helped bridge the gap between education and business so our young people are more aware of the career opportunities available across the region, the routes into them, and the skills and expertise employers need.

The North East LEP, working in partnership with EY Foundation, is also leading a pilot programme looking at how the Good Career Guidance Benchmarks can be adapted for a primary setting. Our North East Ambition Career Benchmarks: Primary Pilot is designed to build careers aspiration and inspiration from an early age. We’re currently working with 70 primary schools from across the North East LEP region to see if introducing the Benchmarks can help sow the seeds of ambition from an early age. We’re seeing very promising results so far.

National Careers Week is a fantastic opportunity to share some of the amazing work taking place across the North East LEP region to educate and inform young people about the career opportunities available to them so they can all fulfil their potential and enjoy rewarding and successful lives.

Please follow our Twitter account, @northeastlep, or connect with us on LinkedIn, to take part and show your support for National Careers Week.

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East Durham College launches Careers Leadership Committee

East Durham College operates across three campuses and serves a wide and varied group of students studying both academic and vocational courses at various different levels, including GCSE, BTEC, NVQ, A Level and Higher Education.

Because of this, East Durham College was keen to explore a new approach to careers education, one that met the needs of each and every student.

In recognition of its unique offer, the College chose to establish a Careers Leadership Committee that could work effectively across all three of the college’s sites and better represent its students by offering a diverse range of views and experience.

To support its work establishing a Careers Leadership Committee, East Durham College used its learning as part of the North East Local Enterprise Partnership’s Gatsby Good Career Benchmarks pilot to map out how each department engaged with careers. The exercise showed some excellent careers education provision within its curriculum areas and some in need of improvement.

Based on this research, and following recommendations from The Careers & Enterprises Company, East Durham College established a Careers Leadership Committee that comprises a Board member, two members of the College Leadership Group, the Vice Principal Curriculum and Performance and:

  • Director of Student Experience, Engagement and Wellbeing
  • Director of Inclusive Learning
  • Programme Leader for Progression Coaches
  • Curriculum Manager 14-16
  • Curriculum Directors from across all campuses
  • Careers Co-ordinator
  • NECOP Co-ordinator (FutureMe)
  • Quality Co-ordinator

Since forming, the Careers Leadership Committee has helped ensure careers education is at the heart of East Durham College. It is now a regular agenda item at all Curriculum meetings where it is planned, reviewed and assessed as part of each Curriculum Area’s SAR & QIP.

The Student Service department has increased its careers advice provision and more cross-college events are taking place to support students and parents.

The Careers Leadership Committee has also begun to record and capture careers activity across the college’s three campuses to identify which teams are performing well, and which teams may need some additional support.

The only costs associated with the new Careers Leadership Committee is staff time, meaning it is a sustainable and long-term way of delivering effective and impactful careers guidance that will benefit all students at the College.

East Durham College is one of 11 colleges and sixth form centres involved in the only national College Careers Hub in the country. Careers Hubs are a central part of the Government’s Careers Strategy, which aims to improve careers education and help prepare young people for the world of work.

The College Careers Hub pilot is facilitated by the North East Local Enterprise Partnership.

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In conversation with Michelle Rainbow, Skills Director at the North East LEP, about the North East Regional Careers Leaders Network Meeting

Friday 29 November is an exciting day for us as we welcome 140 colleagues from schools and colleges across the LEP area to the first Regional Careers Leaders Network Meeting of the academic year.

Taking its turn this time in Newcastle, at St James’ Park, the event is an opportunity for us to discuss the latest developments in careers education and hear from guest speakers working in the education and careers sector. This is the largest meeting we’ve held to date, which really demonstrates the region-wide commitment to delivering quality careers education in our schools, colleges and universities.

The theme for this event is ‘Careers: The bigger picture’, and our invited keynote speaker is Steve Hailstone, Senior HMI further education and skills in the North East, who will take us through the new Education Inspection Framework and what it means for Careers Education, Information, Advice and Guidance (CEIAG) in our schools and colleges.

We’ll also hear from guest speakers representing National Careers Week, NatWest and HMRC about the ways they can support careers provision in the LEP area and offer opportunities to students.

I’m personally really looking forward to the first ever screening of a new film we’ve developed in partnership with students from Norham High School in North Shields. For the past few months, students have been looking at the career opportunities available in the four sectors identified in the LEP’s North East Strategic Economic Plan as contributing to the growth of our economy – digital, advanced manufacturing, health and life sciences, and energy. The film will be available to view on the North East Ambition website after the event.

We’ll also be providing an update on the North East LEP’s North East Ambition programme, including our recently launched North East Ambition: Careers Benchmarks Primary Pilot, which aims to build ambition from an early age. We’ll also be discussing how the education sector can engage with the LEP’s new Digital for Growth strategy.

There will be some interactive and collaborative activities too so colleagues have the chance to network and share some of the brilliant work they do.

Our North East Regional Careers Leaders Network Meetings are a fantastic way for careers leaders and people supporting careers education in schools, colleges and universities to come together, improve their knowledge, and learn from each other. There is a huge amount of inspiring and innovative work taking place in our region and this event is also a great opportunity to share and celebrate the achievements of colleagues helping to improve opportunities for young people in the North East.

If you’d like to join us at the next meeting, or would like to know more about careers education and North East Ambition, please visit www.northeastambition.co.uk and sign up to our opportunities bulletin, or email us via [email protected].

 The North East Regional Careers Leaders Network is supported by the European Social Fund through the North East Ambition programme. The North East Ambition programme receives funding from the European Social Fund as part of the 2014-2020 European Structural and Investment Funds Growth Programme in England.
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Bringing careers strategy into reality, and into life

Newcastle College is the North East’s largest college, with more than 16,000 students. It is also part of Newcastle College Group (NCG) – one of the largest not-for-profit education and training groups in the UK, made up of seven colleges.

The college is supported by the North East Local Enterprise Partnership’s North East Ambition programme, which helps every secondary school and college in the region towards achieving the government’s Good Careers Guidance Benchmarks.

In just 12 months, the college has successfully improved the coherence and visibility of careers guidance across the whole organisation.

A dedicated Careers Portal is now prominent on the college website and every newly-enrolled student receives a clear and user-friendly Skills and Careers Programme Plan.

More than 5,000 16 to 18-year-old students, including apprentices, received this during their induction activities at the start of their qualifications this year.

Ronnie Burn, Head of Student Services and Careers Leader at Newcastle College, explains how they achieved this success, including the challenges they have navigated along the way:

Supporting the progression and next steps for our students was always at the very heart of our work. We set out to create a plan that could and would be embedded at a college-wide level, to ensure that all our students would be fully aware of our careers guidance and curriculum offer and could make informed decisions for themselves, at every opportunity.

One of our primary goals was to ensure that ownership and responsibility of careers guidance within the college is a key feature for each and every staff member.

We started our journey by completing North East Ambition’s benchmarks audit tool. We also used the Careers and Enterprise Company’s Compass assessment tool.

Doing all of this gave us a great starting point for creating a three-year action plan.

What we did next

Through North East Ambition, we were given the opportunity to join the country’s only regional College Hub, and this gave us many opportunities to consult on best practice models, drawing from career guidance peers from across the region.

The external evolution of careers guidance development work over the last two years, both nationally and regionally, has provided a network to share and test new thinking in developing working career guidance models that operationally fit with the college.

One of our priorities was to identify those colleagues with a responsibility for the provision of careers guidance from across the college, and ensure they were included in the planning from the start.

We consulted right across the college to gain feedback on the first edition of the Skills and Careers Programme Plan, and this included discussions with NCG Executive Directors, members of the college Principalship Team, college Directors, Heads of Curriculum and Service Managers, the Quality Team, Central Support staff and Marketing services.

The impact of this has been that our plan reflects a number of aspects of curriculum content delivery and developing practice.

These include the development of ‘schemes of learning’ incorporating the skills, knowledge and behaviours required in the context of a job role, as well as a focus on the relevance of English and Maths.

The process has also helped us to look at the expectations around work experience and engagement with employers, which has resulted in us developing the role of Enterprise Advisors by curriculum area.

Our continuing collaborative work with staff ensures that our next Skills and Careers Programme Plan aligns with the quality assurance cycle and the student journey, becoming a natural development within the business planning process.

Initial indications suggest we’ve achieved positive reinforcement of careers guidance from all staff and students across the college.

Our biggest challenges

Our biggest challenges have been around developing a sustainable model that is embedded across the college and is accessible to all.

What we learned

It was vital to involve colleagues from across the college, to ensure that responsibility and accountability was transparent. We scheduled fortnightly meetings with curriculum directors and managers to promote the context of the plan and embed this into the business planning process.

Top takeaways

Acknowledge the diversity and social mobility of your students and recognise that ‘one size does not fit all’, so build flexibility into your programme.

Early buy-in and agreement from senior leaders provides a springboard for the careers leader to accelerate action plans.

 

Visit Newcastle College’s careers portal at ncl-coll.ac.uk/careers

Read the latest Skills and Careers Programme Plan for 2019/20

Find out more about North East Ambition at northeastambition.co.uk

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North East LEP supports conference aimed at inspiring next generation of female leaders

Hundreds of schoolgirls from across the region gathered at Northumbria University on Monday 16 September to attend Newcastle High School for Girls (NHSG), one-day biennial North East Women (NEW) Leaders Conference.

Supported by the North East Local Enterprise Partnership through its North East Ambition initiative, the conference brought together female leaders from both within and outside the region to share their knowledge and experience with the aim of challenging gender inequalities and inspiring young women to take a leading role in whatever career or profession they choose.

Michelle Rainbow, Skills Director at the North East LEP, said: “This event provided a great opportunity for young women to hear first-hand about the career journeys of exceptional, hard-working and brilliantly successful females.

“We want all young people to be ambitious about the career opportunities that await them, no matter what their background or gender. Through our North East Ambition programme, we’re supporting schools and colleges across the region to offer a range of high-quality careers activities and experiences and achieve the government’s Good Careers Guidance Benchmarks.

“North East Ambition also links schools and employers more closely together, to identify and meet the skills demands of the future and support our aim of driving an uplift of 100,000 more and better jobs by 2024.”

Speakers at the event included Ann Francke, Chief Executive of the Chartered Management Institute; Debbie Edwards, CEO of FDisruptors; and Sarah Glendinning, Regional Director of the CBI.

The young delegates attended a series of Power Up Workshops offering tools to boost the girls’ futures, focusing on areas such personal branding, jargon busting and getting the best out of people. They also explored what leadership looks like now and in the future, and how they can develop their own personal authentic leadership attributes.

The North East LEP’s North East Ambition programme aims to ensure all North East schools and colleges achieve the government’s Good Career Guidance Benchmarks by 2024. By doing so, every young person should have access to excellent careers guidance that enables them to identify routes to a successful working life, make more informed decisions about their future and be better prepared for the workplace.

For more information, visit www.northeastambition.co.uk.