With the 4th Industrial Revolution come huge opportunities and challenges, requiring a growth mind-set, creativity, critical thinking and complex problem solving skills. These are vital life skills for the future and recent research from Sutton Trust shows 88% of young people, 94% of employers, and 97% of teachers say life skills are as or more important as academic qualifications.
According to the British Chambers of Commerce, 88% of businesses believe school leavers are unprepared for the world of work. The situation looks likely to get worse with a 61% drop in apprenticeships compared to last year and Ofsted reported that 37% of apprenticeship providers were less than good.
Key points for us in this PowerPoint
There is a way forward
Our education system is failing our children by not educating the whole child, particularly in the areas of health, social and emotional wellbeing. The pivotal opportunity to change this situation is at the end of Key Stage 3 when students elect their GCSE options with a view to their future career in relation to employability skills. This is the time when student’s, teachers and parents come together, however, this is also a time when students need to feel happy within themselves, confident and able to achieve. But at this time students could be struggling with:
- Lack of self-esteem and confidence
- Low emotional literacy and resilience
- Confused identity and where they fit in and
- The variety of issues around adolescence
Parents may also require new skills with everything they are facing:
- The fast pace of change for themselves
- Less time and opportunity to influence their children
- Their work/life balance and how to fit everything in
- Increased cost of living and reducing income levels
And teachers need new skills to manage:
- Increasing workload, pressures and stressors
- Changes to the curriculum and disproportionate focus on grades
- Lack of respect of the profession, no work/life balance and low morale
- Managing increasing class sizes and the changing world of work
See our Frequently Asked Questions by schools in relation to our employability program and the Compass Careers Benchmark (Gatsby Foundation Benchmarks).
The benefits
The benefits to you of using our innovative, evidence based, personal development suite of programs, – a powerful combination of mindfulness, emotional literacy and life coaching techniques, – are:
- Improved emotional resilience allowing teachers, parents and students to adapt to change more effectively
- Creating a growth mind-set leading to an inspired, motivated attitude to life
- Happier, more self-aware and confident students empowered to think for themselves and take responsibility
- Greater trust and communication between teachers, parents and students about work related learning, work experience and careers information, advice and guidance.
Whole school culture change
This program offers enormous potential for ambitious and committed schools seeking to make positive, sustainable culture change, first at Key Stage 3, then at all other Key Stages.
In becoming more inspired, motivated and empowered, students at Key Stage 3 will also be more open to further learning and have greater confidence and belief in their own ability to succeed.
As each additional cohort of students progress they will attract interest from other students, teachers and parents. The impact will create a momentum of empowerment and achievement, which becomes self-fulfilling and self-sufficient.
Next step
Contact us to find out more about how this approach can help your school community.
