We think there is a new energy abroad in education and training, sweeping the landscape to create new opportunities and outcome for a range of young people. Discover a couple of examples of this new delivery below…the horizon may have just go a bit nearer for young people who don’t seem to quite ‘fit the traditional bill’.
Robert Ashton FRSA drives forward his Swarm Apprenticeships, in conjunction with Chris Perry, to deliver a new sort of enterprise encouragement and training.
Swarm can offer young people Level 2, 3 and 4 apprenticeship framework options, with the added zest of ‘…innovative enterprise training workshops which develop the mindset and commercial awareness of apprentices’.
You can discover a comprehensive list of the integrated Swarm developmental workshops here. This impressive cast list is designed to sensitise and energise apprentices into an entrepreneurial, developmental and goals achieving mindset.
The Swarm team’s key focus qualification is the Level 3 Diploma in Enterprising Skills in a Business Environment, although the company does offer other opportunities too.
What we liked most is how this entrepreneurial flavour and admixture is seamlessly blended into the training programme for the individual, combining both the needs of the apprentice to perform well to his or her employer’s satisfaction, whilst at the same time creating the building blocks for a mind-changing mentality about what it is possible to achieve.
You can see how the next generation of mainstream Oxbridge business and political leaders are seeking to develop a social good from their careers, for example, in the 80,000 Hours programme. This Ashton led initiative caters for bright young people, we think, who may have fallen through the educational cracks or who are seeking a very practical, resource driven approach to learning and skills uptake to the benefit of business, society and the individual.
We highly commend the Swarm Apprenticeship approach to our readers. See more here.
The second tranche of new activity that seems to be stirring in the East is the nascent Careers and Enterprise Company. This national umbrella movement, itself sheltering under the wing of Local Enterprise Partnerships for its delivery, is beginning to recruit Enterprise Advisers across Norfolk and Suffolk.
This new, innovative scheme seeks to engage schools and suitably qualified businesses in a new form of partnership, where the school benefits from the insights and experience of the employer in a ‘… network to create powerful, lasting connections between local businesses and the schools and colleges in an area‘.
It is an idea designed to see businesses helping school senior management teams to develop strategies which link the world of work to the curriculum and energetic adaptability of schools, maximising their local contacts and accelerating the context of their educational outcomes to the benefit of both pupils and employers.
Lord Young has described the Adviser role in this way…
“I propose that Enterprise Advisers would advise head teachers and teachers on the ways employers can engage with the school, drawing on advice from key local partners, including those that offer careers advice. I would envisage that the Advisers are drawn from all sectors of the economy and not only restricted to entrepreneurs‘.
Whatever your sector or size of organisation, if you believe in the programme of connecting schools and enterprise, then a visit to the Careers and Enterprise Company web site will reap rewards, we are sure.
Connections and conclusions:
Here at conversationsEAST we are keen to support changes in the educational landscape. We sponsor the Inequality in Education movement and tender them a web presence, and are establishing a Cambridge group to make the IETT a nationwide intitiative.
Similarly, we know that Fellows, like Robert Ashton and others are actively working with schools in the East of England too.
What we would argue for is a synergetic relationship between all these programmes of work, where employer recruitment, in the Ashton/Swarm model is also part of the options for employers in the Enterprise Adviser network, for example.
The one is not designed to swamp the other, but to add a richer texture to the offer of all. RSA Fellows can also add a powerful contribution to the development of the Enterprise Adviser network too, we are sure.
In simple marketing and recruitment terms, if I’m building a trusted network or list of individuals dedicated to social good, then lets share some of that trust and fellowship with others in the public sector, striving for the same aim.
Now that would be a Happy New Year!
