Teaching children the world is their oyster

PROJECT

Our Future

PURPOSE

To enhance social mobility, improve gender equality and expand opportunities for primary school children

FUNDING

In 2021/22, £150,000 from Derby Opportunity Area Board plus £115,000 from the Government Equalities Office Equality Hub

BACKGROUND

In 2017, Derby was ranked the ninth worst social mobility “cold spot” across all local authorities, with serious concerns about the high proportion of 16- to 17-year-olds not in education, employment or training. The city was identified as one of 12 Opportunity Areas receiving government funding to boost social mobility. Initially a three-year scheme, the Opportunity Area programme has been extended twice and currently runs until August 2022

Research has found children as young as six often rule out career options because of their gender, ethnicity or socio-economic background. In March 2019, the Derby Opportunity Area Board commissioned and funded the Our Future Derby project to tackle this issue. A career-related learning programme was developed and delivered by charity Education and Employers, education outreach company Learn by Design and careers policy and research organisation DMH Associates.

“All the research supports the fact career-related learning has to start early,” says Lauren Croll, Learn by Design outreach special projects manager.

ACTION

Our Future aims to inspire children and raise their aspirations by developing their understanding of the link between school and the wider world of work and increasing awareness of the range of jobs available.

Initially called Our Future Derby, the project focused on 33 primary schools in the seven most disadvantaged wards in the city. This academic year, it has been extended to primary schools across Derby, Derbyshire, Nottingham and Nottinghamshire under the name Our Future, and is currently working with 52 schools.

Each school nominates a “careers champion” – a teacher or manager who is supported to expand their expertise in career-related learning. Schools receive a “menu” of career-related activities to choose from including question and answer sessions, assembly or curriculum topics, and games intended to help children explore jobs and enterprise activities.

“We deliver career-related learning activities for the young people in school, which has an impact on the young people, but also shows the teachers how easy it is to deliver this kind of work and how they can do it independently,” explains Croll.

Activities are designed to be interactive and engaging, helping children broaden their horizons, tackle potential stereotypes about the jobs people can do based on their backgrounds and see the relevance of learning.

Delivery is tailored to the needs of each school. Some may have a high number of families who are new arrivals to the UK or whose first language is not English, while others may have a high proportion of intergenerational unemployment or a high number of children with special educational needs or disabilities. Activities can also be linked to the national curriculum.

“Some schools we’ve been working with introduce every single new topic with a link to the world of work. It might be volcanoes, it might be ancient Greece, they just find a link somewhere,” says Croll.

The wide range of activities on offer include What’s my line?, a school assembly activity which sees pupils try to guess the job of a line-up of volunteers. There is also Where does my job take me?, with volunteers showing the places their work takes them with props, pictures and activities. A Day in the Life allows pupils to speed network with volunteers to gain an insight into a typical day at work for them, followed by hands-on activities with a range of careers for the children to explore.

Some sessions are focused on specific sectors such as the sports industry, the rail sector, renewable energy, robotics and the NHS.

During lockdown, sessions were live-streamed into the classroom and some activities are still available virtually. Increased use of digital technology – prompted by the pandemic – has widened the pool of volunteers available to schools because they don’t necessarily need to visit in person. “A pilot gave a virtual talk while he was on stopover in the Philippines,” says Croll.

Volunteers from the world of work play a key role in the delivery of the programme. “None of this would be possible without them – they are the people who really bring this to life,” says Croll.

Schools sign up to Education and Employers’ national Primary Futures programme, which offers an online “match-making service” between schools and more than 10,000 volunteers. Volunteers taking part in Our Future have come from organisations including the NHS, Google, Lego, the RAF, BAE Systems, Rolls Royce and the Zoological Society, as well as local solicitors and freelancers in the creative and arts sectors. They receive support including training webinars and access to a volunteer handbook and online guides.

Teachers are encouraged to tap into a bank of online careers resources, including lesson plans, PowerPoint slides, activity worksheets and videos to create their own lessons. These were developed for Our Future but are available to any school. At Landau Forte Academy Moorhead, for example, when discussion about female mountaineers developed into a debate about gender stereotypes, the teacher was able to access resources featuring a male florist and female construction worker.

The head teacher at Akaal Primary School, which has a high number of parents of Indian heritage with high aspirations for their children, was keen for pupils to meet career ambassadors who could tell the children: “It’s okay not to be a doctor or a lawyer.” The school used Primary Futures to find relatable role models who spoke Hindi and Urdu and who understood the cultural nuances and pressures.

In its final year Our Future is focusing on sharing best practice. “Some of our schools have been working with us for three years, so we are offering twinning opportunities where we are bringing together a small group of schools with at least one school that is further along in their journey to share their experience of delivering career-related learning,” says Croll.

The other focus for this year is reducing gender stereotypes. Funded by the Government Equalities Office Equality Hub, Our Future has developed resources for Key Stages 1 and 2. Younger children complete a quiz and visit different stations set up in the school hall to try out different jobs based on their interests, as well as hearing from people doing jobs not seen as traditional for their gender.

“The learning is when you’re choosing a job, you choose it based on your passion, your skills, your interests, your talents, your experience, not on your gender,” says Croll.

The Key Stage 2 resource focuses on people throughout history who have broken down gender-related barriers.

OUTCOME

After taking part in the programme, 81 per cent of children reported they had learned about five or more jobs and 93 per cent agreed that “people like me can do any job they want when they grow up”. Children were asked to rate themselves on a scale of one to five against eight key skills. Ratings increased for all the skills except “talking in front of the class”.

The proportion of children agreeing with the statement “I can do any job I want when I grow up” increased from 68 per cent to 73 per cent. For pupils in receipt of free school meals or eligible for the Pupil Premium, it increased from 66 per cent to 75 per cent.

The proportion of teachers who said they were “well” or “very well” equipped to embed career-related learning into the curriculum rose from 32 per cent before to 50 per cent after doing Our Future activities with pupils. On average, children rated the activities 4.3 out of five.

WHAT’S NEXT?

It is feared the pandemic will widen the attainment gap between disadvantaged children and their peers, making raising aspirations early even more important. The partners are looking at other funding opportunities and hope to extend the scheme geographically. “We work so well together as partners, it is a model that plays to each of our strengths,” says Croll. The resources developed for the programme will remain available.

• If you think your project is worthy of inclusion, email supporting data to derren.hayes@markallengroup.com