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Teacher Encounters Programme trains over 40 teachers

The Teacher Encounters Programme trained over 40 teachers in the 2023/24 academic year. This effort improved their understanding of careers education and built strong ties with local employers.

Key achievements of the programme

Increased awareness of careers education: Teachers enhanced their knowledge of best practices in careers education. This helped them effectively integrate these principles into their classrooms.
Developed employer partnerships: The programme helped teachers form valuable relationships with local employers like Production Park, Wilmott Dixon, KPMG, PwC, Haribo and Burberry. These partnerships led to collaborative projects, work experience opportunities, and guest speaker sessions, giving students great exposure to the world of work.
Enhanced student engagement: By providing teachers with the tools and resources to deliver engaging careers education, the programme empowered them to inspire and motivate students to explore their career aspirations.

Feedback from the programme

Many teachers who participated in this training are now creating exciting resources and projects that include careers support in the curriculum. Here’s what they said about the training:

I think it's been interesting and so valuable for me to get out and have a look at a local business in our community and really get into a workplace. One take away for me is to start talking about employability skills and link them to careers, especially with my year 10s.

Science Teacher

Teacher helping student, pointing at their laptop screen

In the short term, a personal achievement has been embedding careers, as that is something that I've wanted to do for a long time but there never seems to be the time to do it. Whereas, by taking part in this initiative, it's kind of given me that time and opportunity to do it. I just didn't know there was so much support for careers. I just presumed that we were just left to our own devices. But that's not the case. The support and offer of making connections has become clear to me now and it is completely fantastic.

Maths Teacher

Children working at school, making posters

Listening to the apprentices speak, it was really nice to hear them speak and hear how eloquent they were. I guess it has been a reminder and refresher for me of how powerfully young people can speak to other young people – I think my students would listen to these apprentices far more than they would listen to me and take advice and knowledge from them that they wouldn’t take from me. It is a good reminder of how we can do things better or differently.

English Teacher

Speaker at graduate event as people listen

It has broadened my professional network, giving me the confidence to approach businesses and deepened my understanding of the opportunities accessible to our students. The encounters provided a way to find out which companies are flexible enough to allow our learners to take part and, for those that don't, give me a chance to question why not and find out what we could do to help. It is very refreshing to hear Willmott Dixon speak about how they are willing to adapt what they do for our students as usually employers come to us asking us to adapt to them.

SEND Specialist