Celebrating people who make careers education brilliant
On 26 June, we were delighted to invite over 130 careers leaders, enterprise advisors and businesses together to celebrate the fantastic work they do to help young people understand the wealth of career pathways available to them.
Our Careers Hub team introduces passionate business people from a range of sectors (our enterprise advisors) to work with careers leaders in mainstream and specialist education. This lived experience makes careers education dynamic and practical, and helps schools meet and exceed national benchmarks.
Our all-day Careers Education Community Conference at Teesside University London, in Stratford, was an opportunity to recognise the excellent work happening across our boroughs, to share learning and build relationships.
A day of learning
The day kicked off with a brief welcome from Sarah Murray, Director of Local London, Katheryn Elliott, Head of Partnerships and Teesside University London and Oli De Botton, CEO of the Careers Enterprise Company.
Attendees then broke into groups for workshops covering pertinent subjects including:
- Understanding the labour market.
- Parental engagement strategies.
- Practical ways to support pupils with SEND.
- Gaining traction for Gatsby Benchmark 4.
- Overview of pre-internships for SEND students.
- Designing and delivering careers activities for young people (for enterprise advisors).
After lunch Prof Deidre Hughes OBE delivered a dynamic talk, touching on international approaches and impacts on careers advice, as well as the role of careers advisors and AI in preparing young people for the future world of work.
Tracy Eve, Local London Careers Hub Lead, shared updates regarding the hub’s work as well as highlighting teacher encounter and VIP (Visiting Industry Professionals) days, designed to help schools achieve benchmarks 4 and 6 respectively.
This was followed by an awards ceremony celebrating people’s contribution to making careers education brilliant for students across our boroughs.
Celebrating our careers super stars
The award winners, runners up in each category were:
Most Inspirational Business of the Year
- Winner: CGI UK.
- Runner up: Wates.
Most Inspirational Enterprise Adviser of the Year
- Winner: Timothy Wilson, Higgins Partnerships.
- Runner up: Trevor Gomes, RISE Coaching and Mentoring.
Most Inspirational Careers Leader of the Year (SEND / PRU / AP)
- Joint Winners: Lauren Bakewell, Cleeve Meadow School, Bexley and Hannah Bruney-Bunbury, Hawkswood Therapeutic PRU, Waltham Forest.
Most Inspirational Careers Leader of the Year (Mainstream)
- Winner: Hardeep Kaur Phull, Eden Girls’ School, Waltham Forest.
- Runner up: Shoheb Manjra, All Saints Catholic School and Technology College, Barking and Dagenham.
Sarah Murray, Director of Local London, said “Congratulations to today’s award winners, runners up and nominees. Our team would really like to send a huge thank you to all the enterprise advisors, careers leaders and businesses working across our boroughs. These fantastic people make such a huge difference to the outlook young people here have on their options after secondary school. Hats off to all of you.”
Creating Connections
Concluding the day, attendees were able to network and discover more about each other at the provider marketplace. This was an opportunity for careers leaders and advisors in schools to learn about how the exhibitors could work with them to help schools create meaningful careers curriculum and highlight a multitude of pathways.
Careers Leader at Eastbury School, Barking and Dagenham, Ferdausi Rahman, said “I found the Parental Engagement workshop very helpful. I am really excited to try out some of the different strategies we went through in the session, especially the tips for engaging with parents whose first language is not English. It’s also been great networking and getting ideas from other careers leaders, we rarely get to do it on this kind of scale.”
Derwent Jaconelli, Managing Director at Urgent Services Limited who was an award nominee, commented “If it wasn’t for the careers hub there’d be no real careers information for students. I got involved because I wanted to make a difference and help today’s young people get better information than I got about what is out there. I’ve worked with some motivated careers advisors who have listened to me and I try to encourage people I know to get involved because our experiences bring that understanding to life.”
What’s next?
The careers hub team would love to work with people from any sector who care about inspiring young people to broaden their career horizons.
Equally the team are passionate about helping schools provide the best careers advice and experiences to students. Our teacher encounters and VIP (Visiting Industry Professionals) days are part of our wide offer.
To find out more contact the careers hub team careershub.east@redbridge.gov.uk
Read more news from the Local London careers hub.
