What is TES Growing Ambitions?
TES Growing Ambitions provides information and advice for teachers and careers professionals to help channel the aspirations of young people. The website hosts a rich bank of multimedia resources that can be downloaded and used in lessons to help students make informed choices about their future. Here you can find news and information on the changing careers landscape, access over 4,500 free teaching resources and discover the latest post-16 career routes available to young people.
At a time when the delivery of careers advice in schools is changing, this platform will be a dedicated portal to help teachers and careers professionals to support young people’s learning about jobs, careers and the world of work. The 2011 Education Act places a duty on schools to provide impartial careers advice for pupils in years 9–11. The ambition of this website is to support the teaching profession and to embed careers across the curriculum to ensure that young people have access to quality IAG as part of their learning from an early age.
The idea arose from a recommendation in a report by Deloitte entitled Helping young people succeed: How employers can support careers education – increasing and improving employer involvement in providing young people with careers education, information, advice and guidance. The report, undertaken on a pro-bono basis, was commissioned by the charity the Education and Employers Taskforce. The members of the Taskforce’s Partnership Board, which includes the leaders of the main teaching unions and organisations as well as TSL Education Ltd (publishers of the TES) considered the recommendations and agreed that teachers needed an easier way to access information on careers. TSL, in partnership with the Taskforce, have therefore designed and developed TES Growing Ambitions. The site is editorially managed and maintained by TSL Education.
Further research undertaken by the Taskforce highlighted the importance of young people having the chance to meet people doing a range of jobs, and hearing from inspirational speakers. In response to this, the Charity has developed two free initiatives for schools and colleges:
- Inspiring the Future
Inspiring the Future is a free service which will see tens of thousands of people from all sectors and professions volunteering to go into state schools and colleges to talk about their jobs, careers, and the education routes they took. Volunteers range from people in the early stages of their career to CEOs. To access this network of volunteers click here: http://www.inspiringthefuture.org/
- Speakers for Schools
Speakers for Schools is the idea of BBC Business Editor, Robert Peston, who wants young people in state schools and colleges to have the same opportunities to hear from inspirational speakers as those who attend top independent schools. The idea is to level the playing field and for it to become the norm for leaders in their fields to give talks such as these. It is free for state schools and colleges http://www.speakers4schools.org.
Acknowledgements:
We are grateful to Dr Deirdre Hughes, Director, DMH Associates and Associate Fellow at Warwick University’s Institute for Employment Research for her expert advice on the design and structure.
We would like to thank all the educational and employer organisations that have contributed resources and material for this website. For a full list of key content providers please see the partner page.
The source of all the material in the Jobs A-Z section and the Sector Skills Council Factsheets that are available on TES Growing Ambitions can be found at Directgov and are covered by Crown Copyright.
