By David Brockway | Product Development Manager
In recent months, we have been rolling out new products that allow us to deepen the quality of our work and widen the audiences we engage with. The two products that we’ll mention in this update are our annual Student Attitude Survey and our teacher continuing professional development (CPD) offer.
At Form the Future we want to be pioneers, moving away from the top-down model of telling students what job is best for them and instead creating avenues for students to explore their interests and gain the information they need to make the best decisions for themselves. We bring this approach to everything we do, and the Student Attitude Survey allowed us to gain a more detailed insight into what the young people we work with think, feel, and need when it comes to their careers education.
The survey covered a range of topics, from where students get ideas and inspiration about careers, to how confident they are about school equipping them with the skills they need in the future, to uncovering the reasons why students feel some jobs are out of reach.
Running a large-scale survey was a big step for an organisation of our size, and we couldn’t be certain what results it would yield when we set out. However, thanks to a large response rate and some well-crafted questions, we have gained insights that allow us to improve and grow our work, enabling us to embark on a new phase as we mature as an organisation. Taking innovative steps like this comes with a higher level of risk for small, not-for-profit organisations, but with the support we gain through GlobalGiving, we can have the confidence to take the step and reap the rewards.
The other product we would like to share is almost at the other end of the spectrum. Rather than asking our traditional beneficiaries (students) what they thought, our teacher CPD offer is our opportunity to share our knowledge with a secondary beneficiary.
As a team, Form the Future holds huge collective knowledge and experience that we can use to improve the quality of careers education beyond our activities alone. Our CPD offer allows us to support teachers – the people who spend more time with students than anyone outside of their family – in providing higher quality careers learning and mainstreaming it through their regular work.
Our CPD offer is interactive, fun, and brings in employers from our region: so it’s no surprise that it’s proving popular with teachers who have previously seen us in action at their school and now get their own turn to benefit! We’ve worked hard to get this product established and are now hoping to deliver it to a growing number of schools each year.
This update has been about innovation, growth, and constant improvement. Three things that are necessary for an organisation to succeed: with your help, we hope to keep doing them for years to come.
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