Foreword: What challenges are we addressing?

Our aim at Changing Education is to inspire future leaders; by giving students a real insight into the various industries and paths, they could follow and open their eyes and imagination to the potential and available job opportunities.
We help schools and colleges provide purposeful, planned, safe work experiences and broader career opportunities. We are passionate about work-based learning and understand the enormous leap many students struggle to make from the classroom to the workplace. We appreciate how difficult it is for a busy educator to find and oversee appropriate, safe, and meaningful work experiences for large cohorts of learners. We know that Gatsby, OFSTED, qualifications, logistics, risk management and, as importantly, employer engagement make work experience programmes enormously time-consuming and logistically complex. We have blended our two passions – education and technology – to build the answer:

We believe the following 4 principles must be in place to achieve success.
1. A robust delivery model
2. A web platform for educators.
3. A mobile app/portal platform enables learners.
4. A portal for employers to access work placement activity.

So, this business has been built on a straightforward principle: the more students can spend time in a work environment, the better. Not just for the experience it brings but also for the discipline it requires.

Providing so much experience for many students in this day and age isn’t easy. It means:
1. Networking with vast numbers of employers to provide opportunities.
2. Arranging the logistics is quite different for an in-person and virtual experience.
3. Ensuring that regulations and benchmarks are met, including Ofsted and Gatsby.
4. Knowing where everyone is at all times.
5. Recording and reporting on results and performance.

If you’re not a teacher, you’re probably beginning to understand quite what an undertaking this is, which is where the Changing Education team comes in. Changing Education is an Education Business Partner. And our business is taking the weight of all five steps off the shoulders of individuals within schools and colleges. We do it by combining our passion for:
1. Education in its broadest sense
2. Local communities and the importance of bringing young people into the workplace
3. ‘Technology’ and the enormous amount of time and hassle it can save
4. Innovation. We constantly look to do things differently and better.

The 2021 and 2022 academic year has undoubtedly been challenging. The landscape was still being determined regarding work-related learning and broader careers due to economic fallout and post-covid restrictions still operating in the UK industry. We, too, found it challenging; however, listening to our team, critically analysing our data, and evaluating our qualitative interactions with students, educators and employers, we are pleased to share our impact statement and highlight areas for improvement to ensure schools reintroduce work-experience as an integral part of the curriculum.

Read our complete impact statement here