It was a pleasure to welcome representatives from our schools and local businesses to the first meeting of my Schools and Skills initiative earlier this month, kindly hosted by UKAS.
The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the importance of access to real world skills and work experience, and the challenges and opportunities that exist, and what more we can do locally to improve access to these opportunities.
From these discussions it is clear to me that there are 3 broad areas of need that are not being fully met:
-
delivering access to work experience and business skills;
-
increasing understanding of the real-world application of skills and available career pathways; and
-
the need for a co-ordinated local network for careers officers in schools and colleges
I am passionate about supporting our children, families and schools. Every child deserves access to great opportunities, and by providing the experiences, information and advice outlined above I believe we could broaden horizons and significantly increase the opportunities available to many students.
We are lucky locally to have many great local businesses and schools and parents with links to even more. I would like to be able to utilise this for the benefit of all students, especially those disadvantaged, including students in receipt of the pupil premium and children with special needs.
There was strong support for more co-operative working across Runnymede and Weybridge, and my next steps are to reach out to more potential partners, including Surrey Chamber of Commerce, our County and Borough Councils and the M3 Local Enterprise Partnership to see what further support can be gathered.