AEIAG0115

Written evidence submitted by Speakers for Schools

About Speakers for Schools

Speakers for Schools is a leading youth social mobility charity, launched in 2010 by ITV’s Political Editor Robert Peston and supported by the Law Family Charitable Foundation. Our mission is to raise career ambitions among young people from disadvantaged backgrounds across the UK, and provide the necessary inspiration, experience and networking opportunities for them to succeed. With a network of more than 1,500 eminent speakers and 800 employers, we work with over 4,000 schools and colleges across the UK.  We supported 213,119 young people in the academic year 2020/21, are on a path to support over half a million this academic year, and plan to support one million young people during the 2022/23 academic year. 

Our programmes include,

• Inspiration: connects young people to business leaders, politicians, and other professionals of high-standing and influence, and
• Experience: where, with our growing network of over 800 of the UK’s leading employers, we host high-quality placements for young people to give them meaningful experience of the world of work.
• Progression: which supports young people in exploring their next steps beyond school or college.

Executive Summary

Speakers for Schools is passionate about ensuring there are clear and supported pathways for young people, especially those from disadvantaged backgrounds, into further and higher education, training, and work. Key to the Government realising its levelling up ambitions is ensuring that young people’s future is not determined by their place of birth. Having evidence-based, well-funded and supported careers education, information, advice, and guidance is central to this.

In order to achieve this, we recommend,

1. That the Government work with multi academy trusts, local authorities and technology providers, as part of its commitment to levelling up, to deliver affordable access to technology so young people’s access to opportunities is not restricted by circumstances outside of their control.
2. That the Department for Education work with schools, local authorities and business groups to ensure there is a wide range of placement types so that young people do not have limited opportunities.  This should include placements from local businesses as well as those based elsewhere in the UK, to ensure every young person can engage with the widest possible range of employers and careers.   
3. Every young person in England should have a minimum of one experience of the workplace in each of key stages three (11-13), four (14-15) and five (16-18).  This is an increase of one on the current objective set by the Gatsby benchmarks. This should be a legal entitlement. 
4. That access to employer encounters and experience of the workplace is reported on by race and ethnicity. Our data shows that among young people from minority backgrounds there are distinct needs, and we know from our experience that tailored high-quality engagements can make a real difference.   
5. That every young person should have access to a combination of in person and virtual work experience opportunities, to ensure that young people are able to explore the world of work, and develop ambitions, beyond the limits of their geographical boundaries. their needs are met and they are able to explore their ambitions and build their skills and confidence. 
6. That the Department for Work and Pensions should co operate more closely with the Department for Education to ensure that young people with additional needs are fully supported to prepare for their future careers. 
7. The Department for Education work closely with the Department for Work and Pensions, business networks and leading youth social mobility charities, such as Speakers for Schools, to develop and deliver a renewed careers strategy to ensure young people have the knowledge, skills and capabilities they need to set and reach their ambitions. 
8. That government collaborates with young people and youth social mobility organisations such as ours to create an expectation for what an experience of the workplace should include.  We are currently developing this with our Youth Council. 
9. That careers advice and guidance are part of teacher training for all subjects, and we recommend that government work with Speakers for Schools and other business networks to develop effective continuous professional development for all teachers that would enable the whole school to deliver ‘Careers across the curriculum’. 
10. That the new Future Skills Unit in the Department for Education works with Schools and Speakers for Schools to provide clear, easy to understand skills data and projections that we can use to inspire young people. 
11. Every young person should have an experience of the workplace at each key stage of secondary school, and at least one of these must include experience of an apprenticeship. 
12. Cross government support for the Speakers for Schools Youth Card, including funding to scale it up, and collaboration to ensure all services for young people, such as transport, leisure entitlements and more, can be delivered directly to young people through the app. 

Speakers for Schools would welcome the opportunity to expand on our written evidence and appear before the Committee to discuss its recommendations and further detail our experiences.

Our full response to the call for evidence:

Whether the current system of careers education, information, advice and guidance (CEIAG) is serving young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.

At present, the current system is not doing enough to address the barriers faced by young people from disadvantaged backgrounds.  It is also not doing enough to ensure that all young people are aware of the full range of options available to them, with especially low levels of understanding of vocational options including apprenticeships. 

The Social Mobility Commission has set out the characteristics of disadvantage that add to this challenge.[1]  These include:

• Present bias,
• Low self-efficacy,
• A preference for “hot” information from social networks,
• Social norms,
• Risk aversion, and
• Cultural ties which shape aspirations. 

Speakers for Schools’ programmes are designed to tackle these barriers and our evidence shows that we are delivering powerful interventions, scaling to the volume needed, to the young people that will benefit.  A recent YouGov poll commissioned by Speakers for Schools[2] that asked young people about their future careers found the biggest barriers for them to achieve their ambitions are,

• Lack of access to relevant work experience (39%), and
• Uncertainty about what they want to do post education (37%). 

Young people themselves are clear about just how important experiences of the workplace are to them achieving their goals and shaping their futures. It is clear from the national trends[3] that access to work experience has declined over the past two years and our experience supports the belief that access is not equally distributed across the country, limiting the opportunities for young people from more disadvantaged backgrounds and those living in deprived areas.[4] Ultimately, young people from lower socio-economic backgrounds remain the cohort that doesn’t fully benefit from careers interventions. Speakers for Schools is determined to break this cycle. In the academic year 2020/21 we offered 56,792 virtual work experience placements working with 677 employers.  We can do more, but young people’s access to technology restricts these opportunities, as well as limited curriculum time being available to take part in our programmes.

Increasingly used because of Covid, virtual experiences of the workplace were recognised as meeting Gatsby benchmark criteria (the criteria endorsed by the government careers education policy) for the first time in 2020 and is widely acknowledged as a valuable part of young people’s careers education, alongside in person work experience.  Young people who have been on our placements have compared in person and virtual work experience placements. Whilst in person placements enable young people to judge whether they feel comfortable in a physical work environment, which can be particularly important for some young people from disadvantaged backgrounds and some young people with additional needs, online work experience placements allow engagement with a range of role models from across the business and the opportunity to work on a project with a team and gain feedback, all of which are vital to engaging and inspiring disadvantaged young people. We know that placements can have a positive impact on the confidence, and therefore future career prospects, of young people.

After his placement, one 16-year-old said, ‘it has helped me have a basic understanding of the jobs I can go into and what skills I would need to improve and gain to be able to get those jobs.’

The evidence base is very clear on the impact of teenage uncertainty about future careers and education.[5] In order to address this, the CEIAG needs to go beyond the current requirement of only one careers meeting per year per pupil over three key year groups. With children ruling out career options from early stages of life, only one experience of the workplace up to age 16, and one 16-18 is not enough for them to make informed decisions. Young people with access to limited cultural and social capital and who are living with workless families often only aspire to what they see. As a result, they are more likely to develop unrealistic and limited aspirations. Sufficient investment and renewed efforts through CEIAG through primary and secondary education should have started to address this; however, it remains challenging to secure time for all young people to take part in opportunities, and not all schools have chosen to engage with virtual work experience, which has meant many young people have missed out during the pandemic. 

We know that work experience is particularly important for disadvantaged young people, and our programmes have the greatest impact for those who are most disadvantaged.  In Speakers for Schools 2021/22 impact survey responses, we use free school meals (FSM) recipients as a proxy measure of disadvantage. In the post-placement survey, 84% of students in receipt of FSMs were informed or very well informed about the business and the industry or sector of their host employer after completing virtual work placements. For non-FSM students, 66% felt informed or well informed.  Knowing what employers are looking for and learning more about their career options after their education, were the top two areas in which placements helped young people on FSM who attended virtual work placements.

Recommendation 1

We recommend the Government work with multi academy trusts, local authorities and technology providers, as part of its commitment to levelling up, to deliver affordable access to technology so young people’s access to opportunities is not restricted by circumstances outside of their control.

Recommendation 2

Speakers for Schools recommend that the Department for Education work with schools, local authorities and employer groups to ensure there is a wide range of placement types so that young people do not have limited opportunities.  This should include placements from local employers as well as those based elsewhere in the UK, to ensure every young person can engage with the widest possible range of employers and careers.   

Recommendation 3

Every young person in England should have a minimum of one experience of the workplace in each of key stages three (11-13), four (14-15) and five (16-18).  This is an increase of one on the current objective set by the Gatsby benchmarks. This should be a legal entitlement. 

Whether the current system of careers education, information, advice and guidance (CEIAG) is serving young people who are known to the care system.

We know that our placements are of real value to young people in care - 111 virtual work placements were accessed by 85 students known to the care system from 43 Local Authorities in the autumn term 2021. 

Whether the current system of careers education, information, advice and guidance (CEIAG) is serving young people who are not in mainstream education, including home-educated pupils and those in alternative provision.

We have limited access to young people not in mainstream education.  We anticipate that the development of our Youth Card.  Youth Card is a free mobile app, produced by Speakers for Schools and co-led by leading charity partners; UK Youth and Young Enterprise.

It acts as a one-stop shop for amazing opportunities and has been designed specially to benefit young people aged 11-30 who live in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. By downloading the free app, young people gain instant access to thousands of opportunities in their local community and beyond.  This will enable us to engage with young people outside of school. 

Whether the current system of careers education, information, advice and guidance (CEIAG) is serving young people those from different ethnic minority backgrounds.

In the Speakers for Schools pre-placement survey, we ask young people if they have support to help them make education and career choices, either at home or at school.  A total of 745 respondents were Black and Ethnic Minority students: of those, 56% answered ‘yes, a lot of support’ compared to 63% of White students. Overall, just under half of young people who accessed experiences of the workplace facilitated by Speakers for Schools were informed or well informed about routes in employment with the employer who hosted their work placement.  In contrast, white students (53%) were most likely to know about routes into employment with their host employer.

Careers guidance must go beyond being supported at school. Young people must have a realistic understanding of what career opportunities there are in their local community so they can make an informed choice. When asked if they were aware of the types of businesses or employers in their area of the country, only 35% of Black and Ethnic Minority students answered ‘Yes’, with 50% saying ‘maybe’. In contrast, 41% of White students said ‘Yes’ and 45% said ‘maybe’.

This lack of knowledge about routes into their desired careers and pathways available at local employers is reflected in the fact that only half of students from ethnic minority backgrounds were confident or very confident about their future possibilities in the world of work. Almost half had never secured a work placement prior to securing a work placement experience facilitated by Speakers for Schools.

Speakers for Schools are relatively successful in reaching Black and Ethnic Minority students, with 55% of students who disclosed their ethnicity when applying for placements on our portal in the 2020 -2021 academic year coming from a Black and Ethnic Minority background.

Recommendation 4

We recommend that access to employer encounters and experience of the workplace is reported on by race and ethnicity because our data shows that among young people from minority backgrounds there are distinct needs and tailored high-quality engagements can make a real difference.   

Whether the current system of careers education, information, advice and guidance (CEIAG) is serving young people those who have a special educational need or disability.

In 2021, Speakers for Schools ran a campaign, focused on facilitating experiences of the workplace for students with special educational needs or disabilities.  We know that within this group of young people is a huge range of needs and abilities. What is critical, is showing a level of commitment to helping young people with a disability or special educational need reach their potential. Many young people with additional needs can participate fully in our programmes with adjustments to support them getting the full benefit of the placement, whether that be a small adjustment or more significant shifts to programme pace or content to suit the individual. For some young people with additional needs, in person opportunities are more useful than virtual placements so they can develop the confidence they need in being able to thrive in a physical environment.

In the pre-placement survey, we asked young people who secured work placements how informed they were about the support that businesses provide to their employees with additional needs.  Only a slight majority of 59% were informed or very informed about reasonable adjustments or support available to disabled staff. However, a vast majority of 97% said they were somewhat or very likely to consider a future career in the industry they were about to join for their work placement. This gap between disabled students’ high aspirations and low knowledge of how the world of work supports employees with additional needs has to be addressed to reverse the trend of low progression rates into further education and highly skilled employment among those who have a special educational need or disability.

A key factor in young people with a special educational need or disability having the confidence and belief to reach their potential is meeting similar people who’ve achieved success and hearing their stories. To help these young people realise their ambitions, our Inspiration programme has a number of high-profile speakers with disabilities who deliver inspiring talks about their life stories, including Baroness Tanni Grey-Thompson, James Partridge (Director of Face Equality International), Robert Wainwright (CEO of WWA Consultants) and Jessica Taylor-Bearman (Author & Founder Share a Star Charity).

Recommendation 5

That every young person should have access to a combination of in person and virtual work experience opportunities, to ensure their needs are met and they are able to explore their ambitions and build their skills and confidence, through engaging with a wider pool of employers than just those in their locality.  And that young people are given curriculum time to participate in them.

Recommendation 6

That the expertise of the Department for Work and Pensions in access to work be combined with the special education needs experience of the Department for Education to ensure that young people are able to prepare for the support likely to be available to them to access work, and that support should be available to enable them to fully participate in experiences of the workplace whilst in education. 

Whether and how the Government should bring responsibility for CEIAG under one body, for example a National Skills Service, to take overall responsibility for CEIAG for all ages, and how this might help young people navigate the CEIAG system.

Whether such a National Skills Service is best placed in the Department for Education or the Department of Work and Pensions to avoid duplication of work.

Speakers for Schools believes that any future careers strategy must have its roots in the Department for Education. Schools are a vital route to engage young people in activities that help them develop the skills, gain the knowledge and build the confidence, motivation and sense of self efficacy that is needed to enable them to set and reach their ambitions. It is important to recognise that schools are not the only route and that schools and teachers cannot be solely responsible for young people’s personal development. 

It is also important to differentiate between information, advice and guidance aimed at people currently seeking work, and that required for people, including young people still in education, who are some steps away from the workforce. This includes ensuring that the content is future proofed and helps with making choices at key stages 4 and 5. There is also a different role for inspiration and role models, which will vary according to life stage.

Recommendation 7

Speakers for Schools recommend the Department for Education work closely with the Department for Work and Pensions, employer networks and youth social mobility charities including Speakers for Schools, on a renewed carers strategy to ensure young people have the knowledge, skills and capabilities they need to set and reach their ambitions. 

How careers and skills guidance could be better embedded in the curriculum across primary, secondary, further, higher and adult education, to ensure all learners are properly prepared for the world of work

We know that deeply embedded cultural stereotypes take hold early, and access to role models that challenge stereotypes are important from primary school age and through education. Research commissioned by Speakers for Schools demonstrated the value that speakers in schools can contribute.[6]  We found that:

• The vast majority of young people are positive about the benefits from talks, with up to 90% of young people saying the talks had helped, spanning attitudes and motivation, careers understanding and self-belief,
• Young people were particularly positive about the talks having helped them understand that everyone had to overcome setbacks with nearly 90% saying that they helped, and more than half saying they helped a lot. 
• Attitudes and motivation improved most for students who had been to more talks. For “Free School Meal” (FSM) students, there is a particularly strong association with being confident that “people like me” can be successful.

We know that a programme of talks can also reduce the number of students feeling their background holds them back, from a significant minority to barely a handful. Students who could not recall any talks were five times more likely to believe that their background held them back in achieving their ambitions compared to those who could recall eight or more talks. With FSM students typically benefitting more than non-FSM students, talks and work experience are a tool for closing the privilege gap in society, and should be seen as part of any levelling up strategy.  

When senior leaders are involved in organising the majority of talks, more activities, such as talks, take place than when the senior team were not involved at all.[7] Teachers were far more likely to feel their school was doing enough to prepare young people for the future world of work when they offered talks. Teachers who offered talks had a significantly higher likelihood of being confident in their school’s career provision than those who didn’t.

Work experience can also have the greatest impact when students are prepared and if there is an opportunity for reflection afterwards. However, we know that only 28% of students attending Experience placements had support in preparing for it in advance. 

Another route to ensuring all young people have the knowledge, skills and capabilities they need to succeed and thrive in their future careers is to embed careers into the curriculum.  There are many examples of partnerships between STEM organisations and businesses supporting STEM education and supporting teachers to contextualise STEM learning and share information about careers in engineering and other STEM industries. There are far fewer examples of curriculum collaboration across other areas of the curriculum, and where they do exist, they are the result of sustained partnership between a business and a school where strong relationships have enabled detailed dialogue about what the school would value, and what the business can offer.  UBS and its partnership with the Bridge Academy in Hackney is an example of such a partnership, as set out in the Playing Fair toolkit from Business in the Community (BITC) in 2019.[8] 

BITC’s research with teachers to understand the value of curriculum collaboration found that, as well as meeting careers education objectives, curriculum collaboration helped to motivate those learners who were not always engaged by other methods, through providing context for learning.[9]

Speakers for Schools Making up for Lost Time research showed how powerful it can be then a young person can connect their learning with experience of the workplace.[10] 

“So, what made it a good work experience was that we’re able to talk to the people that run it, they step back and let us do a project as well as a few talks about the company, different sections… We actually met people that were leaders of the company, and we presented our redesign to them… they were just normal people. They weren’t some big-headed boss or anything… and on the other side young and aspiring people, talking about how they were planning to improve the company in their own way with new technologies and stuff… It makes you think actually learning is something I need to go back and commit to…Well, I took a lot away from it, especially the new technologies, and in physics, we have to write a report on something we’re interested in. We chose to do it on kinetic flooring, which was mentioned on this work experience, and I’ve just finished it, and the teacher is really impressed”.  Thomas, 17, Lincolnshire. 

We know there is scope for Speakers for Schools to do much more to connect teachers and employers to enable the whole school to support young people with their aspirations.

Recommendation 8

Speaker for Schools recommends that government collaborates with young people and organisations such as ours to create an expectation for what an experience of the workplace should include.  We are currently developing this with our Youth Council.  Any placement should include preparation and reflection to make the most of the opportunity. 

Recommendation 9

We recommend that careers advice and guidance are part of teacher training for all subjects, and we recommend that government work with Speakers for Schools and other employer networks to develop effective continuous professional development for all teachers that would enable the whole school to support young people to set and reach their ambitions. 

How schools could be supported to better fulfil their duties to provide careers advice and inform students of technical, as well as academic, pathways.

There is substantial evidence of a need for a major communications and outreach campaign to shift the perception of technical education, including apprenticeships, as a second-class option.[11]  Employers can support this through visiting schools with current apprentices and showcasing apprenticeships in their work experience placements. Some businesses have maintained pre apprenticeship programmes in partnership with schools to support with the engagement of learners who then go to on apprenticeship pathways. 

Schools often ask for help in how to present current and rapidly changing labour market information to help young people understand their potential future careers and what it will mean in practice for young people today considering vocational qualifications. Speakers for Schools recommend the Government provide future facing and current labour market information and provide support for new Local Skills Improvement Plans.  Communicating this in a simple way to schools, in collaboration with employers who can bring it to life, and organisations such as ours who can support engagement with young people, would be a major step forward for vocational careers education. 

Recommendation 10

Speakers for Schools recommends that the new Future Skills Unit in the Department for Education works with Schools and Speakers for Schools to provide clear, easy to understand skills data and projections that we can use to inspire young people. 

Whether the proposals for CEIAG in the Government’s Skills for Jobs White Paper will effectively address current challenges in the CEIAG system

The 2017 National Careers Strategy was a significant step forward and set out, for the first time, what a good careers education should look like. The Gatsby benchmarks were widely adopted by schools in 2017 as a useful way of understanding the key components of careers education and have provided clarity for employers on how they can support. However, in contrast the Skills for Jobs White Paper failed to assess progress since 2017 or set renewed priorities.  

The introduction of the Gatsby benchmarks was a significant moment for careers education in England because it established metrics for activity, and these were broadly accepted and adopted.  However, five years on, we need to review their efficacy, not only, as per the focus of the Skills for Jobs White Paper, in the context of vocational skills, but also in terms of how they are delivering for young people as a whole. We recommend the Government conduct this review as part of its commitment to Levelling Up before the next election.

There are two challenges with the Gatsby benchmarks. Firstly, they measure volume not quality, and there will be a lot of variation between what young people experience in employer encounters and experiences of the workplace – this may or may not be a good thing. Secondly, we believe that one experience of the workplace before the age of 16 is not enough to enable informed decisions about post 16 choices. This is particularly so in the context of debates on enforcement of the Baker clause. We believe employers are best placed to champion vocational routes, and an experience of apprenticeships in a workplace should be one of multiple experiences of work every young person should have before the age of 16. 

Recommendation 11

Every young person should have an experience of the workplace at each key stage at secondary school, and at least one of these must include experience of an apprenticeship. 

Whether greater investment to create a robust system of CEIAG is needed, and how could this be targeted to create a stronger CEIAG.

In the Speakers for Schools Making up for Lost Time report,[12] young people told us that they had low levels of trust in business leaders. A full review of CEIAG requires real dialogue with young people, to understand what they find useful and valuable in setting and realising their ambitions. 

Government investment should be targeted to find new routes to give young people the inspiration and information they need without increasing pressure on schools.  This could include online methods such as the Speakers for Schools Youth Card, a phone app intended to bring opportunities directly into young people’s hands. 

Recommendation 12

We recommend cross government support for the Speakers for Schools Youth Card, including funding to scale it up, and collaboration to ensure all services for young people, such as transport, leisure entitlements and more, can be delivered directly to young people through the app. 

March 2022