Author: Stephen Hackney

Why I don???t work in tech!

Why I don???t work in tech!

I guess we all have our blind spots. Those little things that, however hard we try, just leave us unable to disguise our irritation. For some, it???s their football team losing at the weekend. For others it???s hearing a political view they can???t stand. For me, it???s being introduced as ???that guy who works in tech???!

This irritation is based on one very simple principle. Technology is a means to an end, not an end in itself. We get our shopping delivered to our front door. The app that makes it happen is brilliant, but it???s simply a conduit to the greater goal of making shopping easier. In our case, Changing Education helps students find work experience and careers advice. The software we???ve developed simply makes that happen more efficiently and effectively.

It all began 12 years ago when my co-founder Matthew and I decided to start a business. We had a dream, which was to help young people leave education with credible work, life, and social skills. We???d do it by helping them gain work experience. To become familiar with ???life on the other side??? of school or college and offer advice to help them take their first steps on the career ladder.

We founded Changing Education to do just that. We sat between the students, their schools and the employers who could give them such valuable insights into the world of work. The good news was that it caught the imagination. We were inundated. The bad news was that we were spending our days (and nights!) drowning in paperwork, in spreadsheets and in emails. The logistics continued to mushroom.

So when you???ve got too much to do, and a lot of it is administrative and repetitive, the best place to look for help is in the land of technology. Our wish list was pretty extensive. We needed to manage work experience programmes ???en masse???, record every placement and interaction, store all that information and make it searchable, make it accessible to school staff, employers, our staff and, most importantly, the students themselves, advertise new opportunities, manage risks, collate feedback and collate appraisals. I???m aware that was a long sentence, but it gives you some idea of what we were taking on.

The next step was to go shopping for something that ticked all those boxes. If you like your fairy tales, imagine a 21st Century re-write of The Princess and the Pea! We searched high and low, but there was nothing. So unlike the story, we decided to create our own!
That???s how the CONNECT Web Platform and our Student Mobile App were born. And what we quickly realised was that we couldn???t just make something that worked there and then. Things would change, including our vision. Which meant the software had to be incredibly agile.

We wanted it to become an integral indicator of performance management for departments, areas, and courses. We wanted it to report against regulatory requirements, from Ofsted audits and Gatsby to funding applications. We wanted staff to be able to track KPIs, to improve
employer engagement, assist evaluation of the study programme, and develop wider careers model management and tracking.
As the technology became more popular, we realised we needed even more. This meant developing partnerships with other organisations to service the latest Ofsted and Gatsby requirements, and to offer our users even more.

And as we grew, we had to take care that the quality of our data remained high, because a brilliant system with flawed data isn???t very brilliant at all!

Looking back, we built the business without Connect for three years. We???ve now been developing and improving it for a further nine. During the pandemic, we???ve had to be agile enough to switch the provision to virtual experience and advice. Fortunately, it has held up, meaning that we have been able to continue to help students plan for the future at a time when they need it most.

I am so proud of Connect and our student app. I???m so pleased we invested in it heavily. But, ultimately, it???s just a means to an end. Because we have now helped over half a million children embrace work experience, preparing and inspiring them to become future leaders.

Which is why, when we next meet-up, I???d be really grateful if you could introduce me as the guy who works in education!

Author: Stephen Hackney (Co-founder / Director of the Changing Education Group)

(Virtual work experience is taking place right now. We are already planning for on-site work experience next year. We are hosting a series of webinars to explain how to get involved and how to use our technology. It would be great to see you there. (click this link to sign-up)

Continuing Careers Delivery throughout Cov-19. Author Joanne Green, Careers Lead for The Changing Education Group.

It has been a terrible year for so many, but students have been hit particularly hard. Months at home, no social life, cancelled exams, and stress-levels at record highs. It???s been unprecedented and horrible.

The last years of school aren???t just about lessons and qualifications. They are a crucial time for self-discovery. For dreams to be created and plans put in place to realise them.

This means that lockdown, and with it, the closure of many businesses and their premises weren???t just cruel on those directly involved, but also on the students planning inspiring work experience and future careers.

My team and I saw this firsthand from the very start of the pandemic. We are careers practitioners, delivering advice and guidance to children in years 11, 12, and 13, and our focus had always been on providing it in person on site.

So while March 2020 led to many professionals having an enforced rest, we had to act fast. We felt that this was one part of a student???s life that could adapt to lockdown, but there was no time to waste. We had to be agile.

It seemed pretty clear that we move online. But that wouldn???t be easy with remote learning in its embryonic stages and with many employers so preoccupied with rescuing their own businesses.

But we found a way: Scheduling interviews later in the day so they didn???t interrupt crucial lesson time. Switching to virtual platforms and video conferencing. Suggesting students carve-out this ???career??? time to segment it from their academic focus. Involving parents (many of whom are key workers) in these virtual meetings. Working with partner schools to adapt their delivery models.

We had aimed to deliver as close as we could to our pre-pandemic levels of advice and service. What we didn???t expect, is that they would improve!

It has been a long year, but things have moved fast. So fast that students seem more readily engaged in the guidance process than ever before.
According to the Careers and Enterprise Company, by November, 72% of schools believed careers guidance had become more important than ever due to Covid. As importantly, 76% of business leaders stress that there is now an increased need for employers to support young people trying to enter the workplace.
Careers Leads have been incredibly resilient, continuing to help make this possible and highlighting the need importance, and relevance of the Gatsby Benchmark 8 for Good Careers Guidance.

It has been quite a journey, but there are vital lessons to be learned, in this sector and beyond. Careers Leads in schools have explained that an online provision gives students a new breadth of opportunity. They are no longer stymied by the provision in their local geographical area.

Students, meanwhile, seem more focused and enthusiastic than ever before. Perhaps the news cycle has made them more conscious of the challenges ahead.

Or maybe lockdown has left more time to focus on careers? As a member of staff in one school explained, ???students are increasingly grateful for the guidance and a conversation about the future given the current state of affairs.???

Either way, the energy and positivity with which they have thrown themselves into the process is very special.

For anyone running a business, or working with teens, we would conclude that:
1. There will be a place for virtual advisory services even once restrictions have ended
2. Those services often create a more conducive environment for consultancy
3. Business people remain keen to help
4. Never underestimate the resilience, vision, and drive of this generation of students
And although it has been a year to forget, this is, at least, a very significant silver lining.

I???m always happy to connect and discuss any of these themes.

Author: Joanne Green (Careers Lead for the Changing Education Group)
“As Lead Careers adviser at Changing Education I support a team of experienced advisers in their delivery of Careers Advice and Guidance and advise them on issues they have encountered. I also collate and discuss feedback from all our Partner schools to plan and shape future delivery.”

Changing Education Group is now Cyber Essentials Certified

The need
Determined to reassure potential clients that the Changing Education Groups commitment to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) remains undiminished, Changing Education???s (CONNECT) Co-founder, Stephen Hackney, turned to the IASME Governance certification for help.

Risk Evolves Partnership Case Study

Winning on all counts
Despite the challenges of coronavirus, Risk Evolves has delivered the project remotely to great success. In early 2021, Changing Education Group secured IASME and Cyber Essentials certifications at the first attempt. These will enhance its credibility and make completing future tenders far less onerous. In the meantime, the team is busy delivering the two new contracts that Helen helped win.

Future plans
Keen to continue the momentum, Stephen has already discussed potential next steps with Helen. He comments, ???As we expand, we believe it is crucial to enrich our processes, practices, and reputation among our peers (who are not IASME certified). We???ll consider implementing ISO27001, the Information Security Management Standard, when Helen and I feel the time is right.???

IASME Governance provides compliance with approximately 80% of ISO27001 so we???re sure that the transition will be a smooth one.

???The internal audit and IASME application has been a positive experience for The Changing Education Group??? made possible by the high-quality support and guidance offered by the Risk Evolves team.???

A reason to be cheerful: how we’ve inspired future leaders in lockdown

A reason to be cheerful: how we’ve inspired future leaders in lockdown

Things were all going so well.

Work experience, such a crucial part of a student’s development, was flourishing. It had become mandatory in college study programmes and for schools in Key Stage 5. It was being recommended as best practice for students in Key Stage 4. An increased focus on Gatsby benchmarking has resulted in a significant number of schools reintroducing work-experience as part of the curriculum.

A year ago, thousands of students had already secured placements for the end of the school year. I felt extraordinarily lucky to be part of this flowering of opportunity. I was working at The Changing Education Group (an Education Business Partnership) which had helped over half-a-million young people reap the rewards of work experience.

And then March 2020 happened. The 16th of the month to be precise. Some remember it as the date when the pubs closed. Others for sport stopping. For many, it was the day they started working from home. Or, worse, they were told there was no work left for them to do.

For so many teenagers it was a massive kick in the teeth. Employers told us they no longer had time for work experience. Or that their doors were shut. They were focused on saving their businesses or furloughing their staff. Schools understandably expressed safeguarding concerns around any form of work experience going ahead.

The future looked very bleak indeed. This hit me harder than most. I am Head of Strategic Development & Innovation here and I love my job. But as a teenager, there was no indication that I had any sort of professional future. At 14 I left mainstream education. At 16 I lost a parent. I was, in all honesty, a mess.

My salvation came through vocational training. I was lucky to be offered some experience in a business, and something clicked. I suddenly had a vision on how life could be. How work could actually provide a structure and meaning to life. I grabbed the opportunity and never looked back.

So you can imagine how I felt, waking-up on the 17th March. Like you, I was worried about the virus that was about to blow through the country, but I also saw the immediate effect that this would have on a generation of students whose work experience would be cancelled. Who might never be inspired by that time spent in the world of work.

In short, I made an immediate resolution to do something to help. The resolution quickly became a crusade.

The challenge was pretty simple. There’s a phrase: ‘If the mountain will not come to Muhammad, then Muhammad must go to the mountain’. In this case, if the students couldn’t get to their work experience, we had to bring the work experience to the students. And there’s no point being in charge of innovation if you can’t innovate!

So we created virtual work experience (VWEX). That meant utilising best-in-class technology to bring together employers and students online. Fortunately, twelve years of experience doing it offline meant we knew exactly what was required, so instead of searching for someone else’s solution, we built our own.

This meant providing every pupil with a meaningful work experience outcome in-line with the time attributed within the curriculum. It meant encouraging employers to produce short, selfie-style videos to show what their work involved. We called them Sector Spotlight Sessions and you can take a look at them here. It meant capturing every student’s interests and qualities through a tailored questionnaire. It meant linking them to a placement linked to their aspirations (which is actually easier online because they can experience the best job irrespective of geography). And it meant capturing student and employer feedback to ensure maximum impact and learning.

We did it by utilising our very own Student App (where students manage their own experience) and the associated Connect Web Platform (where work experience officers within schools can manage, track and monitor their progress and wellbeing). In conjunction, this provides all the information required to meet Gatsby and Ofsted requirements.

The results have been amazing. 21,500 students have already secured online placements and there are many more available. Employers have joined in their droves, delighted to give something back, and also to meet their potential leaders of tomorrow.

The current news cycle is encouraging for so many reasons. Schools are open for all. It’s not impossible that work experience will be allowed in person before the summer is out. But although Covid is on the wane, there’s no reason virtual work experience should disappear with it. Because what we created to adapt to lockdown has a whole number of associated benefits, from the breadth of choice it provides students to the safeguarding it enables across the programme.

I know personally that the best way to inspire a future leader is to allow them to experience the workplace. To understand the buzz of working in a team; to see what it means to set goals and meet them; to innovate, problem-solve and succeed. I’d never have believed it on March 16th 2020, but Covid has helped us make that experience easier and more flexible than ever before.

Author: Roman Dibden, Head of Strategic Development & Innovation at The Changing Education Group.

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