During the workshops, students heard from a wide range of volunteers in a number of different career roles, ranging from Managing Directors, Buyers, Business Analysts, Sales Directors and Business Development Managers.
These roles came from a broad range of companies, including The Body Shop, Kellogg’s, ASDA, Eon, Lucky Saint and The Very Group. Students were able to ask the volunteers questions to gain a deeper understanding of how you enter the sector, what it’s like, and what skills and qualifications you need to do their job.
Meeting our project objectives
Over the duration of the project, Future First was able to reach 263 students from the five secondary schools, through face-to-face workshops, with regional volunteers sharing their advice, expertise, and guidance with the students.
We also designed and developed virtual work experience packs for students and schools to access, and delivered virtual workshops to students showcasing the pathways and careers of volunteers. As well as raise the profile for the commerce industry, we were also able to support teachers to harness our tools to the benefit of current and future students.
Feedback from the students
In order to measure the impact of the workshops, students completed baseline and end line surveys at the beginning and end of the sessions. These were centred on measuring students’ understanding of international trade and commerce, their awareness of the career opportunities available within the sector and their perception of their own ability to access these jobs.
The feedback revealed that the students clearly gained a greater understanding of the industry with many developing a keen interest of working within it:
- Overall, 95% of students rated the workshops as good or excellent, with the remaining 5% selecting ‘not sure’ [for how they would rate the workshops]
- 92% of students told us they now understood what international trade and commerce was, compared to 41.3 % at the beginning of the project
- 90.3% of students told us they now knew about different jobs available in international trade/commerce sector, compared to 15.9% at the beginning of the project
- When asked ‘Did the workshop help you to develop employability skills’:
- 62.6% agreed that their skills had been developed as a result of taking part
- 67.1% students said the workshops made them either want to work harder at school
- When asked ‘Were any of the jobs you heard about interesting?’: 97.5% of students said either:
- Yes, all of them (10.8%)
- Yes, the majority of them (50.6%)
- or Yes, but not many of them (36.1%)
Future First’s Programme Innovations Director, Leon Ward said, “This project has been a huge success, and made a real change in developing awareness, raising aspirations, and broadening the horizons of the young people participating.
“Over three years, Future First has allowed the young people we have worked with to gain a stronger understanding of what a particular sector is, and in doing so, this has exposed them to the range of roles within it. This not only widens their perception of what they can be, it also dispels any misconceptions they may hold around who can succeed.”