• Inspiring the Future
• Speakers for Schools
• TES Growing Ambitions
• National campaign Visit our Schools

What we are doing

The Taskforce represents a coming together of partners from the public sector, third sector and private sector, all committed to deepening relationships between schools and colleges and employers.

The Taskforce is led by senior representatives of the employer community, in tight partnership with leading representative bodies from the worlds of education, employment and government.

The purpose of the Taskforce is to offer new leadership to these sectors through three work strands:

(i)                Inspire -  a new culture of employer volunteering with schools

(ii)               Enable - transforming the way that employers and education engage

(iii)             Inform - bringing relevant information to the people who need it

Our activities include

Speakers for Schools

Speakers for Schools  was launched the week of 10 - 14 October 2011 with a series of talks in state secondary schools around England. It is the idea of BBC Business Editor, Robert Peston, who wants young people in disadvantaged state schools and colleges to have the same opportunities to hear from inspirational speakers as those who attend well known independent schools. The idea is to level the playing field and for it to become  the norm  for leaders in their fields to give talks in state schools and colleges.  Speakers for Schools  is administered by Education and Employers Taskforce charity:  http://www.speakers4schools.org/

 

The aim of Speakers for Schools is to broaden the horizons and raise the aspirations of young people. Speakers who took part during the launch week included: George Alagiah (BBC News), William Boyd (author), Damon Buffini (business leader), Sir Suma Chakrabarti (Ministry of Justice), Marcus Davey (Roundhouse theatre), Martha Lane Fox (founder Lastminute.com), Andy Haldane (Bank of England), Julia Hobsbawm (media entrepreneur), Laurence Hollingworth (J.P. Morgan), Ruby McGregor-Smith (MITIE), Sir John Parker (Royal Academy of Engineering), Robert Peston (BBC), Trevor Phillips (Equality & Human Rights Commission), Dame Marjorie Scardino (Pearson), Philipp Schindler (Google), Lord Rees (Astronomer Royal) and Baroness Vadera (former cabinet minister) together with all three party leaders David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Miliband.

 

In December 2011 Seb Coe launched a special London 2012 Olympics  'Speakers for Schools'  week. Speakers who took part included Seb Coe, Jonathan Edwards, Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson and Sir Keith Mills.

 

Speakers for Schools  aims to have a 1000 speakers who can address the big topical issues of the day: technological, scientific, political, economic, historical, cultural, artistic, ecological and ethical.  Over 750 people have already agreed to participate including many leading CEOs, politicians, media and arts people, scientists, entrepreneurs and academics. No charges are made to schools. Full list of speakers at:  http://www.speakers4schools.org/speakers

 

Inspiring the Future

 

 

Inspiring the Future  is a new free service run by the charity, Education and Employers Taskforce which aims to get 100,000 people from all sectors and professions volunteering to go into state schools and colleges to talk about their jobs, careers, and the education routes they took. Everyone from CEOs to apprentices can volunteer for  Inspiring the Future.  Recent graduates, school leavers and people in the early stages of their career can be inspirational to teenagers - being close in age they are easy to relate to; while senior staff have a wealth of knowledge and experience to share.

 

Talking with young people in a school or college can make a real difference to their perceptions of what jobs are available, and it may inspire them to consider options that they had previously never thought about. Talking to working professionals can also help them get a realistic view on the different routes into jobs and careers, and the current labour market.

 

The intention is to get young people to produce short videos of people talking about their jobs and to upload these via their teacher to create a massive free on-line video library of thousands of people talking about thousands of jobs.  The Taskforce will coordinate this project working with a range of partners. A regional and national schools competition is currently being  planned. For more information and to sign up:  www.inspiringthefuture.org  

 

TES Growing Ambitions

 

The Taskforce has worked with the  Times Educational Supplement  (TES)  to develop an online careers portal for teachers called Growing Ambitions. The website pulls together existing careers resources provided by a diverse range of organisations, and is structured in a way that is easy for teachers to navigate. The website covers securing professional careers advice, careers by subject, an A-Z of types of jobs, and information on career routes including apprenticeships, further education, getting a job, self-employment, and university. The site already contains over 3000 resources from some 130 organisations:   http://growingambitions.tes.co.uk/  

 

TES supplement about all three initiatives:  http://europe.nxtbook.com/nxteu/tescreative/inspiringfutures/index.php 

Research

 

A key priority is to ensure that policy and delivery (by the Taskforce and others) is informed by high quality research on the most effective and efficient means to engage employers with education. Access to high quality evidence provides a primary means to influence government policy.

 

The Taskforce has created a unique community of interest which works collaboratively to make it significantly easier to access and understand key research findings and to work strategically to build the evidence base. The thirty-strong Taskforce Research Group includes policymakers, practitioners and leading UK academics.  It oversees monthly free seminars, summaries of key publications, an email group updating subscribers on publications and events, and an annual research conference (2011 keynote: Prof Robert Schwartz, Harvard University). 

 

The Taskforce also works with partners, typically on a pro bono basis, to fill the most pressing evidence gaps.  Projects include work to increase and share understanding on: the scale, delivery and impact of historic UK employer engagement;   how engagement with employers at school-age impacts on the employment and earnings of young adults(with YouGov); how and why high-performing independent schools engage with employers (with Warwick University); the outcomes associated with different employer engagement interventions for different types of people; and, the role fo work experience in helping young people to access work and university opportunities. 

 

More information about our research:  www.educationandemployers.org/research.aspx  

   

About the Education and Employers Taskforce

 

The Education and Employers Taskforce was launched as a small independent charity on the 15 October 2009, and has seven staff. Its aim is to ensure that every school and college has an effective partnership with employers which provides young people with the inspiration, motivation, knowledge, skills and opportunities they need to help them achieve their potential and so secure our national prosperity.

 

The Taskforce's Partnership Board comprises the leaders of the main representative organisations from education and employment and the Trustees are principally senior business leaders with an interest in education.

 

For more details please see  www.educationandemployers.org