EA Meeting Notes 29th July 2021 – Network Focus

We welcomed new EA Paul Atkinson from www.green-works.org

Green-works are a business to business (B2B) consulting business with the aim to drive the green economy.

New Mission and Objectives set by the CEO Oli de Botton and EA Survey results

• Suzy Wright,  Regional Lead – South West Region, delivered a very quick overview of Oli’s new mission statement and vision. The full slides are provided above but below is a little snip from them.
• The EA Survey results were also provided and are in the slides. We had 10 Cornwall EAs provide their feedback – next time please do take the time to complete the survey if you didn’t find time in this round.

Mission: To help every young person find their best next step

Vision: High quality, 21st Century careers education for everyone; everywhere 

By:

1. Challenging and supporting colleges and schools to deliver excellence
2. Challenging and supporting employers to engage for the long-term
3. Giving more support to those who face more barriers

Below provides a nice diagram for the role of the CEC.

New Induction plan

Lucy has been working hard behind the scenes with a new induction plan for new (and existing EAs) which provided the opportunity for feedback during the breakout room discussion.

Feedback from the breakout rooms:

• On the whole very positive and well received.
• Welcoming the idea of getting an introduction to the headteacher as you start and the need to raise the EA profile higher within SLT. Questions were raised about the EA contacting the head without stepping on the toes of the Careers Leader.
• Existing EAs would welcome an induction and some further structure as this wasn’t available when they initially joined and feel this would be beneficial.
• A fuller understanding of the time commitment involved; may need to be explicit about this.
• The induction will provide a clear understanding of the role, especially within a local context.
• The importance of raising the profile for all qualifications particularly work-based training where it has been witnessed as being quite weak in some schools.
• Below is an example of how the work within one school has led to SLT and Careers Governor buy-in at the school.

The full slides are provided above and any further feedback will be welcomed.

Previous actions

• Hub will create a resource pool, a bank of evidence to support EAs in backing up conversations around understanding the importance of careers education in a whole-school approach. This will include key pieces of research and relevant articles from leading voices. We will work on this over the summer
• Hub will share a new strategic plan for comment and feedback, it is important that we have a full and frank discussion on the needs of EAs and join up in fulfilling potential and driving change. We need to revise our existing local strategy based upon the new one from the CEC. We will share this in the new academic year. 
• Hub will build into the new strategic plan actions to raise the profile of the EA network regionally. As above. 

New actions or comments

• In relation to making contact with the headteacher; we fully encourage this action to be made by you. We would like to ensure this is well-planned so that we can maximise this opportunity, so if you do make contact, please ensure you copy in your Enterprise Coordinator. See below document in relation to Ofsted guidance which is particularly important and pertinent to any meetings with the headteacher and governors.
• The Department for Education has released new statutory guidance for Careers which is an important step forward for the work we are doing. More information about this can be read on the link below. The FE White paper published in January was the forerunner to this news.