Business and school partnerships
In Staffordshire, there is a gap between the skills and qualifications that children have when they leave school or education, and what local employers are looking for.
By partnering up with local businesses, you child's school can open their eyes to the exciting opportunities that are out there and give them the chance to learn the wider skills that businesses really value.
You might think that this is only relevant if you have a child at secondary school, but there are plenty of opportunities for businesses to inspire primary school children too, they just take a different approach because the children are younger.
Case study: KMF prepare Staffordshire pupils for lift off
Want to know what a great school-business partnership looks like?
Credit: BBC Midlands Today
KMF, a precision sheet metal manufacturing company in Newcastle-Under-Lyme, are a leading example of how a local business can inspire your children in their future career choices and give them the opportunity to build valuable skills like teamwork, improvisation and leadership at the same time.
KMF’s Young Engineer of the Year competition has been running for a number of years now, and for 2016, saw schools compete to build a capsule that would be launched into ‘space’ using a weather balloon. Pupils were then able to watch its journey using the GoPro cameras they’d been given and track it back to Earth using GPS technology.
Jenny Conlon, training manager at KMF said: "For KMF the competition is all about encouraging young people into engineering and inspiring them into wanting to go into science, technology, engineering and maths subjects. It's also an opportunity to promote alternative career options, such as apprenticeships."
Find out what's happening at your child's school
Find out how your child's school is working with local businesses by asking whether your children have access to any of the below opportunities:
- Mentoring and coaching
- Work ‘taster’ events such as games and competitions
- Access to speakers from the world of work
- An insight from Jobcentre Plus, or the National Careers Service regarding local jobs and the needs of employers
- Workplace visits and work experience placements
- Careers fairs and career networking events
- Access to creative online resources and labour market intelligence
- Help with basic career management skills like CV writing, CV building, job searches and job interviews
Further information
You can find more information on school-business partnerships at: