Getting started

Schools and colleges will differ in the ways and extent that they engage employers. Some schools/colleges may wish to engage employers in almost every aspect of school life, while in others, an employers' role may be low key. Regardless of the intended extent of employer engagement, it is important to create a vision of the role of employers in the life of the school, its staff and its students.  

Creating a vision of the role of employers

Schools and colleges must ensure that all staff have a vision of the value that employer engagement can bring to school life and students' educational success. By creating a vision, it will be much easier to get staff on board to help facilitate education-employer engagement.

This vision must be created in everyone's mind - starting with the school's staff and governors and moving on to parents. All must be given the opportunity to imagine the benefits of employer engagement in the school:

  • The benefits to students' learning experiences
  • The impact on how young people feel about learning
  • The outcomes of that learning.

 

Case study: New Hays Community School

Creating a vision in the minds of staff was a priority at New Heys Community School in South Liverpool. The head teacher and two deputy head teachers originally had the vision of employer engagement: they could foresee the difference that employers could make to the attitudes, aspirations and achievements of their students. However, they did not try to impose their vision on the staff. Instead, each member of staff was invited to imagine a situation in which the input from an employer might make a significant contribution to the impact of the teaching and learning being offered to students.

The staff members were asked to dream and to think the impossible. They then shared their vision with senior colleagues and their departments so that the vision could be refined into practical plans for the successful engagement of employers in a range of contexts and subjects within the school.

Read stories about vision creation on the Diploma support programme website. (Although this information refers specifically to Diplomas, it will also be useful to all teachers.)

 

Implementing the vision with employers

Once a vision has been created, a school's staff, governors and parents will begin to find a personal and practical interpretation of it.

'Education-employer coordinator' role

It may be useful to create the role of an education-employer coordinator and select a member of staff to fill this role. The coordinator would be the main point of contact for any issues relating to education-employer links within the school. In fact the NCEE recommended that every school and college should identify a member of the leadership team to be responsible for creating, managing and developing relationships with business. Read guidance on how to do this.

An increasing number of schools employ their own employer engagement coordinators

Example: Wyndham College in Norfolk says.....

"The employer engagement coordinator role commences with mapping links to employers the school has already. With this as a starting point, the coordinator must establish further needs for employer input from colleagues in school. Suitable candidates from business to fill the roles required must be found, briefed, organised and welcomed.

Once the activity has taken place the event needs to be evaluated, establishing clearly the value added for students and identifying areas for improvement if the activity is to be repeated. Finally, the coordinator should issue details of the event to the press for marketing purposes for both parties and ensure that the employer is thanked for their time and input." 

Jeremy Moyle, language college director at Wyndham College in Norfolk, who has senior leadership responsibility for employer engagement at the school.

  Example: Biddenham Upper School and Sports College Bedford, says.....

"An employer database is in development at the school; employers have been involved in careers events, and industrial visits and work experience have been organised for some students. In the future we aim to build on these links with employers and to continue to involve them within school. In my current role, I am responsible for making links with employers and involving them in school, coordinating work experience [and] developing the careers education and guidance at the school.

To maximise employer engagement, I network at business and careers events and conferences, attend professional development days in industry, cold call and write to companies, set up links with organisations that have connections with employers such as the EBP, the Chambers of Commerce [and] The Britten Partnership. At school, we also aim to build on employer links that are already in place, e.g. the industrial experience of staff, individual staff and department contacts and work experience contacts. We are looking to work closely with other schools and parents to expand our industry links.

In the last year we have set up an applied learning implementation group (Ali-G!) in school, which has representatives from every department. We are in the process of organising a 'playing away' day into industry for all staff so that they can develop an aspect of their work or a unit of work. An employer database is in development at the school, employers have been involved in careers events, and industrial visits and work experience have been organised for some students. In the future we aim to build on these links with employers and to continue to involve them within school. The role of the personal and careers education manager will play an important role in helping us to do this." 

Elizabeth Armstrong, personal and careers education manager, Biddenham Upper School and Sports College in Bedford

 

The next step

Having decided 'how to work with employers' the next step is to make contact with them.