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North East LEP initiative supports students with special educational needs into the workplace

Children and young people from Northumberland with a wide range of learning difficulties and disabilities are being given valuable experience of the world of work thanks to the North East LEP’s Enterprise Adviser initiative.

Students at Cleaswell Hill School, Choppington, Northumberland, will be undertaking work placements and hearing direct from businesses about jobs in the North East economy thanks to the school’s involvement with newly appointed Enterprise Adviser, Keith Nicholson, General Manager of the sustainable development company, Earth Balance.

Keith is the latest North East business leader to join the North East Local Enterprise Partnership’s Enterprise Adviser initiative, which seeks to improve careers education in schools and colleges and support them in working towards the Good Career Guidance Benchmarks, a national pilot scheme led by the North East LEP to improve the quality of careers advice.

Keith Nicholson, General Manager of Earth Balance said:

Physical and mental disability should not be a barrier to employment. That’s a really important message we need to send to young people and employers.

I’m looking forward to working with the staff and students at Cleaswell Hill School to show them the opportunities available to them in their area. I want students to have a realistic picture of what it’s like to work in different sectors so they can make an educated choice about their future.

I’ll also be working with businesses to dispel some of the myths around employing someone with a disability.

Emma Steele, Sixth Form Cluster Leader at Cleaswell Hill School, said:

Working with Keith and Earth Balance has been a fantastic experience so far as we’ve been able to introduce the students to a range of different employers and open their eyes to a host of different careers.

Giving them experience of a real life work environment will be really important in creating and raising aspirations. This experience could be the start of future career for many of our students.

Cleaswell Hill School provides specialist education for children and young people aged four to 19 with a range of complex needs and disabilities. Its key aim is to equip students with the skills, knowledge and experience needed to live and work in society with the highest level of independence as possible, contributing and caring for one another.

It provides support and guidance to help overcome the barriers that may have affected many students’ progress in the past.

In addition to Emma’s role at Cleaswell Hill School, she also chairs the SEND (special educational needs and disabilities) Working Group, a partnership between the North East LEP and a range of public, private and charity organisatons that work to ensure young people with special educational needs and disabilities can access quality careers advice and benefit from the Good Career Guidance Benchmarks in their schools.

Lindsey Peek, Enterprise Coordinator at the North East LEP said:

One of the aims of the SEND Working Group is to address the potential barriers to work for young people and how, as a group, we can find innovative solutions to those problems.

Our Enterprise Advisers are helping that work by championing their positive experiences of working with SEND Schools to the business community. Keith is the perfect Enterprise Adviser to partner with Cleaswell Hill School. Not only is his business based in the area, he has a real commitment to ensure all young people, not matter what their physical or mental ability, have access to the same opportunities and experiences. We share his belief that everyone should be able to achieve his or her career aspirations.

Enterprise Advisers bridge the gap between business and education, ensuring schools and colleges provide the best possible careers advice and students have an excellent understanding of the opportunities available to them in the North East.

The initiative also supports schools and colleges in delivering the Good Career Guidance Benchmarks; eight clearly defined benchmarks for high quality and effective careers guidance. The pilot in the North East LEP region has proved so successful the benchmarks are expected to form part of Government’s new statutory guidance for schools in delivering careers advice. The North East LEP also hopes to expand the scheme to include Primary schools.

The North East LEP’s Enterprise Adviser programme has been running since December 2015. Part of a national initiative developed by The Careers and Enterprise Company, Enterprise Advisers work in partnership with enterprise coordinators to support schools and colleges to navigate the range of possible employer interactions and to help them create a whole school strategy for careers, enterprise and employer engagement.

Find out more about the Enterprise Adviser Network and register your interest.

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Celebrating success: The Enterprise Adviser Network

The North East LEP’s Enterprise Adviser Network connects senior business leaders with schools and colleges, working closely with their senior leadership team to develop and drive a careers strategy that helps young people gain more experience of the world of work and have meaningful encounters with employers.

Lindsey Peek, North East LEP Enterprise Co-ordinator, gives an update on the Network’s success so far:

We’ve had an excellent response from the region’s schools, colleges and businesses since we started the North East’s Enterprise Adviser Network in 2015.

 

To date we’ve partnered 45 Enterprise Advisers with 45 schools and colleges across the North East, and we’re looking to achieve more. We’re proud to have some of the region’s most influential business leaders involved, representing a range of different sectors.

 

They include Giselle Stewart, Director of Corporate Affairs at video game company Ubisoft Reflections, Sophie Pickup, ‎Learning & Development Manager at Northumbrian Water Group and Jen Chamley, Community Engagement Manager at Capita Property & Infrastructure Ltd.

 

Other leading organisations to join our Enterprise Adviser Network initiative include Barclays, British Engines, Bellway Homes, Unipres, ORE Catapult, Accenture, Printed.com and Campus North.

 

The role of the Enterprise Adviser is to bridge the gap between business and education and create a whole school or college strategy for careers, enterprise and employer engagement. From routes to employment and interview skills to work experience and apprenticeships, students learn about the many career opportunities available to them in the North East and educators develop a better understanding of the local economy, which improves the quality of the careers advice and guidance they can provide to students.

 

Creating a meaningful link between education and business has greatly improved student’s understanding of the labour market and helped the business community access a talented and enthusiastic future workforce who will build the economy of tomorrow.

 

Just one example of the success of our Enterprise Adviser Network initiative is Churchill Community College’s partnership with Accenture.

Karen Marshall, Apprentice, Education and Engagement Lead at Accenture, introduced students to a range of careers-themed events including career speed dating, interactive careers fairs, mock interview events and assemblies. Karen, in partnership with Churchill Community College, also delivered an innovative Assessment Centre simulation exercise for Year 13 students to equip them with experience of a real life work situation. Accenture put the whole year group through the selection process offering guidance on CV writing before taking 40 students for a full assessment centre experience. Many of the college’s GSCE students have also met curriculum targets as part of site visits involving Accenture staff.

 

The Northumberland Church of England Academy’s partnership with ORE Catapult has been citied as an example of best practice by education experts.

As well as taking part in the Academy’s World of Work Day, which sees over 50 leading employers and learning providers give students an insight into a range of different careers, ORE Catapult has also provided work experience opportunities and one to one mentoring. Mark Fox, Careers and Employability Manager at Northumberland Church of England Academy and Tony Quinn, Operations Director at ORE Catapult will be continuing to work together to provide students with unique career guidance and development experiences.

 

To highlight some of the fantastic work being delivered as part of the initiative, we’ve produced a series of videos featuring some of the schools taking part.

Sam Mcloughlin at Studio West School, Newcastle upon Tyne, shared his first-hand experience of the benefits that come from working with an Enterprise Adviser. You can view the video here:

Studio West

We’re still looking for schools and colleges across the North East to join our Enterprise Adviser Network Initiative and partner with leading businesses on a journey to improve careers education and guidance for young people in the region.

 

If you’d like to find out more, please contact me or one my colleagues:

Lindsey Peek
[email protected]

Denis Heaney
[email protected]

Andrew Mills
[email protected]

We look forward to working with you

Lindsey Peek
Enterprise Co-ordinator, Enterprise Adviser Programme at the North East LEP

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Accelerating Opportunities for North East Teens

Ryan Gibson reports on how the National Citizen Service (NCS) is supporting schools and enhancing vital careers education – accelerating opportunities for young people in the North East.

At the NCS North East stakeholder group meeting last month, I was encouraged by progress toward a permanent statutory footing for this incredibly important programme. The move is especially welcome here in the North East, a region in which I am extremely proud to say a staggering 95% of our schools are working with NCS right now.

Now the biggest youth movement of its kind, NCS is for 15-17 year olds. Like the Good Career Guidance Benchmarks pilot, for which I am facilitator, its inclusive approach aims to create long-term impact that benefits individuals, schools and communities as a whole. Indeed, the NCS programme is mapped against the eight Benchmarks of ‘good career guidance’. Both programmes seek to improve social mobility, by ensuring that all young people benefit from extended networks of support – whether these are within the community, with information or with employers who can help them.

Many young people have internalised ideas about what ‘people like them’ might do and where they might fit into the education system and the labour market. For some it is about class, for others its ethnicity or gender. Good careers guidance, enhanced by the work of NCS, actively tackles these assumptions by allowing young people to challenge themselves and explore talents they never knew they had. Young people gain the confidence to apply their skills in practical contexts – meaningful experiences that will help them when it comes to applying for jobs or engaging in job, apprenticeship or university applications and interviews.

Through NCS, teenagers gain confidence, leadership and communication skills – as well as resilience and grit – which are vital for employability and life.

Last year alone, teenagers in our region gave over 214,000 hours volunteering through NCS – equivalent to £1million invested into the regional economy. Youth-led community projects offer teenagers compelling real world opportunities to develop and evidence skills that make CVs and UCAS statements stand out. The NCS enterprise agenda produces mature and capable young people.

In addition, when they enter the world of work or university, with all its diversity and challenges, young people are better prepared – thanks to the unique NCS social mix and its focus on stepping out of comfort zones. Wonderfully, the programme also nurtures British values such as tolerance, respect and inclusion; and offers positive outlets and role models for young people.

In our region, NCS is delivered by a partnership of youth charities; V•Inspired and National Youth Agency, working with 13 grassroots organisations right across the region. Since the partnership took on the contract in 2015, nearly 6,000 of our young people have taken part in the scheme.

A dozen North East schools have been lauded for their exemplary support for NCS through the exciting Star Schools Awards whilst over 20 others have scooped Champion School status. Good luck to the many schools already working toward these accolades in 2017.

This year, there are more NCS places than ever before: offering significant investment in developing learners across the region. Schools particularly benefit from the programme’s support with learner progression into work or studies, and they recognise the direct contribution NCS makes to Ofsted judgements.

It’s great to be working together with schools, stakeholders and other partners to help as many North East teenagers as possible access the life-changing experience that is NCS.

Thousands of North East teenagers have already booked their Summer NCS experience. Support young people you work with by engaging and finding out more at NCSNORTHEAST.CO.UK

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North East LEP welcomes newest Enterprise Adviser

The founder of a burgeoning biometric company based in Newcastle upon Tyne is the latest regional business leader to join the North East Local Enterprise Partnership’s (LEP’s) Enterprise Adviser initiative.

Shaun Oakes, managing director of ievo (www.ievoreader.com), will work with staff and pupils at The Hermitage Academy, Chester le Street, to improve careers education and support the Academy in working towards the Good Career Guidance Benchmarks, a national pilot scheme led by the North East LEP to improve the quality of careers advice in schools and colleges.

Working strategically with senior leaders at The Hermitage Academy to shape the quality of careers provision, Shaun joins a long list of leading North East business people who have become Enterprise Advisers.

Shaun Oakes, managing director of ievo, said:

As a local employer I know there is a wealth of talent in the North East and what we’re hoping to achieve through the partnership with The Hermitage Academy is for students to gain an understanding of the type of skills employers in our region are looking for.

It’s important students know that the subject choices they make in school have a direct impact on their chosen career path. We’ll be using our own management team at ievo as case studies to demonstrate pathways into various jobs, from marketing and computing to sales and project management.

Practical sessions on interview skills and cover letter writing will help students understand it’s not just academic achievements businesses are looking for. We’ll be championing the importance of work experience and apprenticeships as really valuable routes to employment.

Andrea Charlton, careers lead for The Hermitage Academy said:

This is an exciting opportunity for students at The Hermitage Academy. We place a high value on showing them the importance of the subjects they study and how they link to real life areas of work. Working with ievo will provide students with a great insight into the many areas of careers guidance.

Lindsey Peek, Enterprise Coordinator at the North East LEP said:

We’re delighted to be working with ievo and The Hermitage Academy on our Enterprise Adviser initiative. Shaun is passionate about supporting careers education and, working in partnership with the team at The Hermitage Academy, there is already a lot of exciting work taking place to improve provision and support students to make better, more informed choices, about their future careers.

Enterprise Advisers bridge the gap between business and education, ensuring schools and colleges provide the best possible careers advice and students have an excellent understanding of the opportunities available to them in the North East.

The initiative also supports schools and colleges in delivering the Good Career Guidance Benchmarks; eight clearly defined benchmarks for high quality and effective careers guidance. The pilot in the North East LEP region has proved so successful the benchmarks are expected to form part of Government’s new statutory guidance for schools in delivering careers advice. The North East LEP also hopes to expand the scheme to include primary schools.

The North East LEP’s Enterprise Adviser programme has been running since December 2015. Part of a national initiative developed by The Careers and Enterprise Company, Enterprise Advisers work in partnership with enterprise coordinators to support schools and colleges to navigate the range of possible employer interactions and to help them create a whole school strategy for careers, enterprise and employer engagement.

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Leading Figure in Games Industry joins LEP’s Enterprise Adviser Programme

One of the North East’s leading businesswomen has joined the North East LEP’s Enterprise Adviser programme to support better quality careers education in the region’s secondary schools.

Giselle Stewart, Director of Corporate Affairs at video game company Ubisoft, is the latest North East business leader to join the programme, which sees business people from some of the North East’s most successful industries work strategically with senior leaders in secondary schools to shape the quality of careers provision.
The programme is designed to ensure school leavers are prepared for the world of work and have a good understanding of the employment opportunities available to them in the North East
Giselle Stewart said:
The games industry, and the creative and digital sector as a whole, is a huge growth area for the North East and it’s vital that we’re making young people aware of the opportunities available to them.
The business community must play an active role in supporting careers education in schools if we want to recruit staff with the right kind of skills. The North East LEP’s Enterprise Advisor programme is all about ensuring teachers and schools can support students to make informed and educated choices about their future.
I’m delighted to be involved as I’ve been a long time supporter of creating opportunities for young people to enter the industry. This is a great way for me, on behalf of the wider creative and digital sector, to make teachers, schools and students aware of the amazing career avenues available to them.
The volunteer role will see Gisele partnered with Ponteland Community Middle School in Newcastle. A total of 43 secondary schools have signed up to take part in the programme, reaching from Berwick to South Durham.
Awarded an OBE for services to the game industry in the 2015 New Year’s Honours list, Giselle has been a long time supporter of creating rewarding pathways for young people to enter the sector. In her role as Advisory Board member with the Next Gen Skills Academy, Giselle helped design a qualification for students aged 16+ looking to enter the games, VFX and animation industry. Delivered at Sunderland College, the course is now in its second year.
As well as being the current Chair of the Skills Council for Video Games at Creative Skillset, Giselle has recently been appointed Trustee for NE Futures, a new University Technical College (UTC) in Newcastle. Scheduled to open in 2018, the new UTC will focus on STEM subjects to feed the digital, tech and health sciences sector in the North East.
Giselle also sits on the Board of the new Creative Fuse NE project, which is run by all five of the North East’s universities, and the External Advisory Board of Durham University’s Computer Science Department.
Denis Heaney, Enterprise Coordinator at the North East LEP said:
Giselle is one of the most respected people working in the digital and technology sector today, not just here in the North East, but across the UK.
She has a wealth of experience as well as a personal interest in supporting development opportunities for young people. She’s exactly the type of person we want as an Enterprise Advisor.
The role demands someone with a good network and an excellent understanding of the local labour market, something Giselle has in spades.
The North East LEP’s Enterprise Advisor programme has been running since December 2015. Part of a national initiative developed by The Career and Enterprise Company, Enterprise Advisors work in partnership with Enterprise Co-ordinators to support schools and colleges to navigate the range of possible employer interactions and to help them create a whole school strategy for careers, enterprise and employer engagement.

 

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Business leaders embedded into schools to drive pupil career success

Successful businessman Gary Burton has joined a Northumberland school’s senior management team creating a powerful alliance to guide the future job prospects of hundreds of pupils.

He is the region’s first Enterprise Advisor – spearheading a North East Local Enterprise Partnership initiative embedding business leaders into secondary schools on a voluntary basis to help teachers shape the delivery of careers education.

Gary, managing director at specialist engineering firm Arefco, is offering his industry expertise as part of the team at the Northumberland Church of England (C of E) Academy’s Ashington campus. He will bring extensive industry knowledge to the school to ensure careers provision for pupils meets business need.

The close working relationship between Arefco – based on the Jubilee Industrial Estate in Ashington – and Northumberland C of E Academy is part of the North East LEP’s wider work to boost economic growth through educational achievement.

Andrew Hodgson, North East LEP Chair, said: “The LEP’s Education Challenge is committed to improving business-education links.

“Our ambition is to ensure that every young person in the North East is able to identify routes to a successful working life – with the opportunity from an early age to have exposure to the world of work and meet people along the way who can inspire and motivate them.

“The Enterprise Advisors are a key part of this and we are excited to see the value that they bring. If you are a passionate, successful leader and believe you could inspire the young people of our region, you should absolutely get involved with this project. It is our opportunity as a business community to support our young people and I would encourage you to do so.”

A total of 24 schools from Berwick to Durham have signed up to the Enterprise Advisor Network, each to be allocated a volunteer business leader in their area to work with them on careers development. Together, they are looking to refine the way schools and businesses interact, examine their enterprise strategies and fill any gaps.

Gary said: “We have a very specific need for technical skills and the type of people we need are just not in the shop window for us to employ.

“Through the partnership with the academy, we can identify the right attitude, aptitude and approach pupils will need to successfully develop and progress into sustainable employment – it’s a win-win opportunity.

“Arefco is involved in the project as a business that cares passionately about putting our combined hundreds of years’ worth of knowledge into giving young people a chance to follow their career of choice.”

Steve Gibson, Northumberland C of E Academy Secondary School Principal, accompanied pupils on a tour of Arefco’s factory. He said: “It is vital for schools to work in partnership with employers to ensure that our young people are fully prepared for their future education and careers.”

North East LEP Enterprise Co-ordinator Denis Heaney is leading the project for the region.

“The world of work is changing and this unique programme is an opportunity for businesses like Arefco to be embedded within a school and make a massive difference to students and their future prospects,” said Denis.

“For the first time, business leaders like Gary will sit alongside head teachers and their senior leadership team, to embed careers development, enterprise and employer engagement into the curriculum from Year 7 onwards so it is taught on a daily basis.”

Arefco employs 65 people at its Jubilee Industrial Estate base, having recently expanded with the acquisition of Stephenson Precision Components of Blyth as the next stage in its growth plans.

It manufactures high precision components for the oil and gas, aerospace, defence and renewables sectors, for blue chip companies such as Halliburton, Aker Solutions and GE.

The North East project is part of the national voluntary Enterprise Advisor Network which reflects new Government careers policy. The programme is being co-ordinated at a national level through the Careers and Enterprise Company.

http://www.nelep.co.uk/improving-skills/projects/