Work experience placements – Organise an outreach event
Angela Edwards looks back on the efforts that went into organising
Gloucestershire’s largest ever educational employment outreach event – and what local schools got out of getting involved…
- by Angela Edwards
- Co-founder of business network C2S Visit website
Labour’s 2024 election manifesto included a pledge to guarantee two weeks’ worth of quality work experience placements for every young person in the country.
As many within the education sector will know, however, actually achieving that is a huge task.
At C2S Growth Consultancy, our response was to organise Gloucestershire’s largest-ever educational outreach event. The aim was to connect students with employers across the region and inspire young people about their future career prospects.
Organising work experience placements
We successfully hosted the the inclusive C2S Educational Outreach Live event at Cheltenham Racecourse last November. It attracted over 1,800 students from more than 30 schools, connecting them with some 55 local companies.
As a result of the event, 69 work experience placements were awarded to pupils with some of the region’s leading employers. This included L3 Harris Technology, Renishaw, Kohler Mira and the NHS.
Our research had shown that local schools were concerned about the level of soft skills and confidence their students possessed. Post-COVID, many had missed out on opportunities to gain the kind of important social skills that help build the confidence employers look for.
For their part, many organisations had lost previously established relationships with schools. Their inability to deliver work experience placements during the pandemic was also beginning to impact upon their talent pipelines.
The main objective of the event was to enable students to engage with a range of businesses, of various sizes, operating across all sectors.
These included:
- manufacturers
- defence specialists
- healthcare providers
- finance organisations
- charities
- law firms
Drawing on our knowledge of the challenges faced by businesses when attempting to connect with students, we sought to create a movement for change by reaching out to our C2S business community, comprising thousands of organisations, and offered them the chance to exhibit and become part of the event.
Getting buy-in
As part of our pre-event research, we met with schools so that we could:
- better understand their priorities
- learn what they hoped to gain from the event
- confirm the best time within the academic year to hold the event
We made sure to include activities on the day that would support the Gatsby Benchmarks. We also liaised with our County Council and Educational Partnership to help spread the word.
We also delivered online events for school representatives to explain the event schedule, how the day would be structured and, most importantly, the measures that we would be putting in place to ensure students’ safety.
Conscious of schools’ limited time, tight budgets and prioritising of student outcomes, the activities we delivered on the day included financial wellbeing sessions, mental health workshops, CV writing classes and First Aid training. There were also ‘speed networking’ events attended by businesspeople.
The challenges
We soon learned how challenging it was to reach the school representatives we needed to speak to. Our ‘career contacts’ would sometimes not be able to attend on the day.
With some schools, we found that certain departments had been made aware of the event while others weren’t.
An important aspect to consider when putting on such events is that schools, businesses and students will all have different needs.
By connecting with all parties pre-launch, we were able to uncover how we could address these requirements and hopefully cater for everyone.
One initiative we came up with was ‘student activity cards’. We asked exhibitors to stamp these each time they spoke with a student.
We found that these worked exceptionally well, by helping to break down those initial conversation barriers.
In all, we recorded 1,517 interactions between students and businesses on the day. We know that many more took place besides those, but the cards gave us traceability.
Practicalities
We chose to host the event at Cheltenham Racecourse. We knew it would be capable of coping with thousands of people while offering good toilets, parking facilities, transport links, options for refreshments, disabled access and so forth.
These are, of course, necessary for schools to see any such event as a safe environment for their students. The more preparation you do beforehand, the more schools can feel reassured and confident in your event when the day comes.
Angela Edwards founded C2S in 2013 alongside Suzanne Hall-Gibbins. It has since grown into a thousands-strong business community operating across the South West. Follow on X at @Circle2Success. Read more about careers advice for students.
