The Old School Tie – How Your Former Students Can Help Motivate Those You’re Teaching Now
There's an enormous pool of potential knowledge, advice and motivation among your school alumni, says Alex Shapland-Howes – so why not have them meet your current students?
Too often in the UK, a young person’s future is determined by their parents’ earnings. This is not only unfair, but limits the contribution that individuals make to society and the economy. More needs to be done to improve young people’s understanding about the world of work, and foster their confidence about what they can achieve after leaving school or college.
Over the next academic year, 12,000 students in 40 state schools and colleges across the South West will benefit from a project designed to boost the academic motivation, career confidence and workplace skills that are so crucial to future success. The Alumni Communities Project, run by the education charity Future First, will link students past and present through ‘old school tie’ networks, harnessing the experience of former students to drive ambition and aspiration in the current generation.
School alumni have untapped talents in an enormous variety of professions and vocations – from bankers and lawyers to plumbers and caterers, not to mention recent school leavers now in further education. The project, currently being carried out in schools across Devon, Cornwall and part of Somerset, will use those skills to prove to current students ‘people like them’ can succeed in a fulfilling career.
Greater motivation to succeed
Working alongside school staff, alumni can increase understanding about the world of work and help students realise the relevance of their classroom studies to life beyond school. They will build students’confidence that there is a valuable place for them in the world of work – something particularly important in the South West, which currently has one of the lowest levels of employer in-school engagement in Britain.
Having been to the same school and lived in the same area, alumni relate to students as role models. Hearing from successful former students who have sat at the same school desk, perhaps been taught by the same teachers and have since made the transition from school to a successful career can transform students’ motivation to succeed.
The project initially got underway at two schools in July this year. At Torquay Academy, alumni talked to sixth formers making their university choices. One, a microbiologist, said she wished that alumni had been around to offer her advice when she was 17 and deciding on her future.
At Bodmin College (pictured above), former students including a writer, an engineer, a housing development officer and drama and medical students worked with Year 10s contemplating whether to go to university. One alumna, a media consultant, said she remembered being daunted by decisions faced by GCSE students, and hoped her experiences of leaving school and university would reassure them.
Enormous rewards
The Alumni Communities project builds on Future First’s existing work in 400 state schools across Britain, helping schools build networks of alumni who can support schools in several ways, including involvement in lessons, workshops, assemblies or mentoring, and providing advice at key decision points.
Examples include St Richards in East Sussex, where former students run mock interviews with Year 12 students ahead of university applications. At Dinnington High School in Sheffield, alumni help 14-year-olds choosing their GCSE options understand how subject choice relates to the world of work.
Alumni offer support from afar too. Former students send advice to those students who are about to leave school, offer online mentoring and participate in Skype talks from around the world.
At St Anne’s School in Southampton, a former student provided online mentoring to a prospective medical student who lacked exam motivation. At Tiverton High School in Devon, an alumnus based in the Netherlands taught an A Level geography lesson on International Labour Markets via Skype. Robert Clack School in Dagenham raises money for university trips across the country, while another school has helped fill its new library by asking alumni to donate a book they have enjoyed. The possibilities for ways in which alumni can support schools are endless.
There are enormous rewards for returning alumni, too. Alumni tell us how much they enjoy the experience of returning to speak to their old teachers and current students.
So we’re now asking alumni across the South West to sign up to support students in the communities where they spent their adolescence. We’re not just looking for celebrities and rocket scientists – we want all kinds of people to sign up to their alumni network at the Future First website and volunteer to transform the life chances of a young person in school or college today.
Alex Shapland-Howes is the managing director of Future First
The Alumni Communities Project will be delivered by Future First in partnership with The Schools,Students and Teachers network and be funded by the Careers and Enterprise Company, set up by the government in 2015 to transform the provision of careers education and advice and inspire young people about work opportunities. For more information, visit futurefirst.org.uk or follow @FutureFirstOrg
