Summary for Heads by Sue Barr

President, Association for Careers Education and Guidance

Why do the Localbiz Project? 

The Department of Children, Schools and Families’ (DCSF’s) recent paper, Quality, Choice and Aspiration, a strategy for young people’s information, advice and guidance (IAG), sets out an ambitious programme to modernise careers education and IAG (CEIAG) to ensure that all young people succeed in reaching their potential. There is good evidence that a young person’s aspirations and positive progression to the next phase of learning or work can be influenced by their CEIAG.

Ofsted

From September 2009, the new Ofsted schedule requires inspectors to make judgements about a range of issues that are impacted by the quality of CEIAG provided by a school, including:

The extent to which pupils develop workplace and other skills that contribute to their future economic wellbeing. Inspectors will look for ‘the extent to which pupils develop knowledge and understanding of the world of work and the skills and personal qualities that will serve them well in education, training, employment and their future lives’.

Through the undertaking of the Localbiz Project, students will have experience of a ‘real life’ context for a business problem which will bring them into direct contact with local employers and community organisations.

The new secondary curriculum

The new secondary curriculum makes more explicit the opportunities for career-related learning. Effective collaboration between schools and employers to deliver career-related learning can have a profound impact on a young person’s aspirations, motivating them to participate and achieve by making learning seem more relevant and engaging. The Localbiz Project can provide a work-related learning context that is based on the local community and provides a focus for students to work directly with employers.

Compelling learning experiences

The Qualifications and Curriculum Development Agency (QCDA) encourages schools to develop ‘compelling learning experiences’ that it defines as ‘real and relevant contexts for learning through which young people recognise for themselves the importance of learning to their lives, both now and into the future.’ It also suggests that a compelling learning experience:

  • Gives learners a sense of autonomy, including the chance to think critically, make decisions, take responsibility and manage risks
  • Offers opportunities for co-operation and collaboration
  • Broadens horizons and raises aspirations, offering contexts that challenge learners and encourage them to step outside their comfort zone
  • Is real and relevant, connecting learning at school to the world beyond the classroom
  • Has a clear sense of audience and purpose
  • Provides contexts that draw together several aspects of learning
  • Has clear learning outcomes

The Localbiz Project covers many of these characteristics and also enables schools to work within their own locality, increasing the sense of relevance for students.

Personal, learning and thinking skills (PLTS)

QCDA has developed a framework for describing PLTS that applies to all young people aged 11-19. It comprises 6 groups of skills, which, along with the functional skills of English, mathematics and ICT, are essential to success in life, learning and work. The groups of skills are:

Independent enquirers – including investigating, processing and analysing information’ planning what to do and how to do it and taking informed and well-reasoned decisions.

Effective participants – including actively engaging with the issues that affect them and those around them, playing a full part in their school and community and taking responsible action to bring improvements for others and themselves.

Reflective learners – including evaluating their strengths and limitations, setting themselves realistic goals, monitoring their progress and performance and inviting feedback from others.

Team workers – including working confidently with others, adapting to different contexts, taking responsibility for their own part, developing collaborative relationships and resolving issues.

Self-managers – including organising themselves, showing initiative, creativity and enterprise with a positive attitude to change, coping with challenges and looking for opportunities.

Creative thinkers – including generating and exploring ideas, trying different ways to tackle problems and working with others to find imaginative solutions.

The Localbiz Project can provide the context to support students in developing these skills.

Personal, social health and economic (PSHE) education: Economic wellbeing and financial capability (EWFC).

This new programme of study brings together careers education, work-related learning, enterprise and financial capability. Localbiz can make a major contribution to the helping students to understand some of the key concepts that underpin this programme of study and thus help them to achieve economic wellbeing. For example:

Career – students can gain an understanding of the qualities, skills and attitudes needed for employability by working with local business people through the project.

Capability – they will learn what it means to be enterprising, in its broadest sense ie. by providing opportunities to apply:

  • Skills such as decision-making, personal and social, leadership, risk management
  • Attitudes such as self-reliance, open-mindedness
  • Qualities such as adaptability, perseverance, determination, flexibility, creativeness, ability to improvise, confidence, initiative, autonomy, willingness to make things happen
Economic understanding – they will gain an understanding of the economic and business environment including all kinds of business in the public, private and voluntary sectors, including large, small and social enterprises.