Careers Inspiration For Every Child

As things start to open up in the UK after more than a year in and out of lockdowns, we look forward to delivering services to children face to face. While it's going to be gradual - some of our STEM company partners aren't ready to run project days at their premises until 2022 - the good news is that we've discovered how much we can do through virtual engagement.

At the end of April, we ran a week of virtual work experience at one of our partner schools in Peterborough. We worked with Nene Park Academy to provide 195 year 10 students with five days meeting employers from five different companies: MetroBank (banking), Morgan Sindall (construction), Marshall Aerospace & Defence (engineering), Cambridge University Press (publishing), and Anglian Water (utility). Each company set a challenge for the students to complete in teams and present back to the employers. After a year when very few students got the chance to spend time in a workplace or meet people beyond their families, it was an eye-opening and rewarding experience. We now hope to offer this programme to schools across our region and hope that hundreds more students will benefit this summer.

We also ran our first online virtual careers fair for 16-19 year olds, with over 400 students, from some 30 different schools. 42 companies took stalls in our virtual exhibition space or joined discussions covering topics like apprenticeships and starting your own business. The most popular session was run by Form the Future's own careers advisors called "What to do if you don't know what to do." This tells us how important it is that we're reaching out to young people now to help them navigate an uncertain future.

Form the Future has strengthened during lockdown. While we may not have reached the usual large numbers of students, we have kept going, providing services virtually, which has allowed us to connect with schools and young people outside of our usual area. We will continue to offer online services so that we can continue to expand our reach, even while we restart our in-person activities.

Young people may not have suffered physically, but lockdown has taken its toll on their learning and their confidence. We are ready to do whatever we can to help them rebuild and grow, preparing them for their future and helping them enjoy the journey.

Thank you for helping to make our work possible.

Kind regards

Anne Bailey

CEO, Form the Future CIC

Links:

• Virtual work experience