CEIAG & Careers Leaders
A good way to help subject teachers to contribute to Gatsby Benchmarks
Tuesday 3rd July 2018
Two things have conspired to prompt me to write this blog today:-
1. I went to a Teachers & Careers Advisers event at Greenwich University
2. An article that appeared in the Telegraph recently. The article was headlined Wave of universities offering free tuition to secondary school pupils amid growing pressure to improve diversity
So I just thought I'd flag up that getting university widening participation teams involved is a very effective way of improving Gatsby Benchmark 4 Linking curriculum learning to careers and 7 Encounters with further and higher education.
What is a Teachers & Advisers event and why would I want to go?
Going to a teachers and careers advisers event at a university is a great way to access free CPD. I know that getting the day off is often harder than finding a taxi in the rain but it really is worthwhile.
For example, at the Greenwich University event that I went to last week, there was a couple of great keynotes on the gap between school leavers expectations of uni and the reality, all this based around HEPI survey data and another on access, success and progress from the Director of Fair Access & Participation at the Office for Students.
In addition to this there were a number of short workshops from experts
- Careers Coaching Conversations
- The future of women in STEM
- How to upgrade your UCAS reference writing
- Gatsby benchmarks, universities as a resource.
Add to this the chance to network and the excellent student panel in the afternoon and you had a pretty perfect day.
Things have moved on a lot since I was last in the classroom regularly. Universities are now key providers of support and resources for school careers leaders. So apart from open days and taster days there are often schemes which support everyday school activities, like the tutoring mentioned in the article or even students as one to one mentors for pupils thinking of going to university.
But it's not just university application that these resources support. A lot of activities support academic skills which will impact on pupils' attainment at level 2 and 3.
How to find these resources
Have a look at my Pinterest boards - there are several which list the widening participation teams of universities throughout the country. Now, open disclosure, I'm not able to check these regularly to see if the links are still up to date. There is only me doing this and my cape is getting a little tatty with all the flying around I do, so if you find a link that doesn't work, please let me know, tweet me or send me an email just to say such and such a pin isn't working.
Or of course you can contact your local uni directly.
Article from the Telegraph
My Pinterest boards
