THE WORLD OF WORK MATTERS!

"When it comes to recruiting young people, most employers, particularly smaller businesses, value experience above all other criteria. Too few young people are gaining experience of the world of work while still at school, college or university. This is contributing to fewer employers recruiting young people and finding that many of those are not adequately prepared for the world of work."  

 Schools and employers to my knowledge have been discussing and arguing about these problems for the last twenty years or is it forever. We need to put in place a world of work entitlement for all young people. We need to put in place provision and programmes to help and support every young person think about routes to a successful working life from an early age, and provide valuable experiences and learning about the world of work. We need to put in place provision and programmes so that every young person experiences impartial, personalised and reliable careers and employability support from a wide range of sources.

We need to ensure that all young people having access to programmes that provide opportunities to meet people who will inspire them, to visit and experience places that will ignite their passion and see things that will motivate them to connect their day-to-day and school learning to future jobs and opportunities in the world of work. And we need to provide opportunities for young people to undertake real 'world of work' projects that will stretch and challenge them to set up their own companies, to be creative, to achieve more and to aspire to be the best they can be. That is what the Cutlers' 'Made in Sheffield programme is attempting to do with 500 young people in ten schools across the city and our ambition is to reach all young people over the next twenty years!!