The Royal Yacht Squadron was the venue for the launch event of the Island Careers Partnership on Wednesday.
Delegates were welcomed by Richard White, Head of the Isle of Wight Studio School and the driving force behind the Island Careers Partnership.
In 2012, Connexions, the universal careers guidance service provided by local authorities, ceased to exist. However, as of September 2018 every school has been required to have a named careers leader. Their role is to lead, manage and co-ordinate the school’s careers programme in 8 key areas, known as the Gatsby Benchmarks.
David Andrews, a recognised careers consultant, gave a presentation on career guidance for young people and followed this up with his thoughts on working partnerships. Role and responsibilities of career leaders was also covered.
Attendees were then invited to have group discussions on the Gatsby Benchmarks of good practice.
With some 1250 businesses on the Island it was felt that an Island-wide map of employers was needed, and that careers guidance should start in primary schools to give pupils early guidance.
With approximately 2.5 million tourists choosing the Isle of Wight each year tourism providers were important employers and even the smallest business has a part to play in career choices as well as an all-round personal skills builder for employees. Everyone had a part to play in careers guidance for young people and parents should be better informed and engage more.
There were presentations from 3 stakeholders including Geoff Underwood, who heads up Inflight Peripherals in Calbourne and is this year’s High Sheriff. He highlighted 3 key areas: social welfare, communication and enthusiasm from would-be employees.
Philip Walker is responsible for skills education in Hampshire and spoke for the local authority. He mentioned the Island had a good record of students going into employment, pointing out that the Island could point to the lowest number of NEETs in the South East area.
Summing up, Richard White felt that heads of secondary schools needed to see employers from the inside with teachers going into businesses as well as business leaders going into schools. Richard said that now the committee for the Island Careers Partnership has been put together it was good to know that funding had been secured from Sovereign Housing and support is there from the Isle of Wight Council.
