The Marches Careers Hub has enjoyed a year of success – with sustained improvements across the last 12 months, new figures show.
The hub – which is delivered by the Marches Local Enterprise Partnership for the Careers and Enterprise Company in partnership with Herefordshire, Shropshire and Telford & Wrekin councils – works to transform careers education by linking education and training providers with the business community.
New figures for the past academic year show it has reached thousands of students and hundreds of teachers and consistently improved its achievement of key performance indicators.
Highlights include:
- Sustained improvements against all eight Gatsby Benchmarks – the industry standard for assessing world-class careers provision.
- More than 31,000 live views for a series of labour market sector-based broadcasts run throughout the year – with a further 12,700 views on demand.
- 4,410 students and 113 teachers using its innovative Start in the Marches local labour market platform to find vital information about jobs and career opportunities and 8,877 unique visits to the site.
- More than 2,500 students and young people taking part in the hub’s Future Skills Questionnaire.
Andriané Usherwood-Brown, strategic careers hub lead, said the figures showed the impact the hub was having across the whole Marches region.
“These figures demonstrate the progress the careers hub has made in the last year in our work to forge strong and effective partnerships with business, education and training providers and students and young people.
“We held a really successful conference earlier in the summer attended by more than 50 stakeholders, with some excellent feedback for the work we are doing and the progress being made to deliver a first-class careers infrastructure.
“The conference also helped develop some excellent ideas for the year ahead, with work to recruit more Enterprise Advisers from industry to continue our work to help bridge the gap between education, training and industry due to start in the autumn.
“We’ve also held a series of briefings for careers leaders, volunteer Enterprise Advisers, governors and head teachers as well as sponsoring two separate successful apprenticeship events.
“The success of the past 12 months means we are well placed to build on this platform over the year ahead, and we look forward to working alongside all our stakeholders to continue to develop a careers landscape which continues to serve the whole Marches region well.”
Herefordshire case study
The value of the Marches Careers Hub’s Enterprise Advisers can be seen clearly in the work of Ruth Whitehouse.
Ruth, who has some 50 years’ experience working as a senior business leader, supports Whitecross High School in Hereford.
Ruth has a real understanding of schools as she is involved with governance as Chair and board member in two other schools. She also supports with mock interviews, attending careers events and talks. As an Enterprise Adviser she also offers strategic advice and guidance using her business experience to challenge thinking.
She says: “I support the school in the capacity of a ‘sounding board’, also challenging decisions to ensure every opportunity has been considered and helping to generate ideas in support of their careers plan.
“The EA role allows the career offering to be maximised and allows the schools to think creatively on how their offering engages the students. I would encourage individuals to take up the EA role, you can be from any business or education background to do a great job; helping our future workforce achieve their potential and recognise all the possibilities available to them.”