T-Level employer's support
Discussion
I'm currently looking at providing employer's T-Level support to a local college. I've been working with the college on a pro-assignment (video production) and am quite enjoying working with the kids who, it seems have fed back positive vibes about me. Apparently I taught them more in a morning than they have learned over and entire term ! 
The commitment doesn't seem too challenging and there is a modicum of financial reward. More of motivation is that I have anytime access to the college's multi-million pound video production suite for any professional assignment. But the primary motivation is helping the kids and hopefully learning new stuff myself.
Anyone done this or doing it? What's the reality like? Too much hassle or worthwhile?
The commitment doesn't seem too challenging and there is a modicum of financial reward. More of motivation is that I have anytime access to the college's multi-million pound video production suite for any professional assignment. But the primary motivation is helping the kids and hopefully learning new stuff myself.
Anyone done this or doing it? What's the reality like? Too much hassle or worthwhile?
I've been doing it for a few years now. (We're in the South East with two different colleges). Both our current students are studying some variant of engineering/electronics.
The students were going to be doing T-levels, but one college tried them for a year and went back to BTEC level 3, the other college hasn't even bothered with T-levels.
As a business we did it, as I wanted to try and put something back as we're doing OK - and having tried to employ young people in the past who were pretty uninspiring, wanted to try see if we could make a difference and help.
I started off a few years back as an enterprise advisor to a local school. Unfortunately they were very keen on the idea of the "gatsby points" they got for having an enterprise advisor. However, they weren't so keen on puting any effort into actually helping the kids learn skills (icing on the cake was when we'd organised for local business owners to come in one evening to give the 6th former's interview experience - and the school decided at the last minute that they wanted to do it at 3pm so they didn't have to stay late - and unsurprisingly all the interviewers were still at work).
We were then approached by a local college, to see if we could offer work placements for 16-18 year old students.
So how's it gone. Hmm that's a really tricky question to answer honestly.
If I just go for what it looks like we've achieved. Since 2021 we've had 9 students (including the current two)
- Five of the students have gone on to University (and have said the experience they got really helped).
- One student turned up for a couple of days, spent the time staring into space - and when we suggested that this maybe wasn't for him, acted very surprised and said "this is the 2nd time this has happened to me now"
- One student asked if we could act as a reference for him to one of our clients for weekend work. He got offered the job, and then didn't turn up for the days first aid course they'd paid for. When we asked him why he hadn't turned up (couldn't be bothered), and explained that it made us look bad - his mum told him to quit immediately, and then she spent a month making people's lives an utter misery for "disrespecting him"
- The current two students are both pleasant and have learnt a lot.
The work placements the college expect you to offer, are unpaid for a limited number of hours. From our perspective we wanted it to work for both parties, so instead of doing this - we agreed with the college(s) that we would offer the students paid part time jobs for the two days a week that they weren't at college. This allows us to train and retain the staff for a couple of years, and the students to have a paid job (with holidays) for the duration of their college term.
Maybe we set out with very rose tinted spectacles - as part of the package we have offered to teach all of our students the basics of, programming, circuit board layouts, 3d CAD and a lot of other engineering skills we felt would be invaluable to them in their future careers. Not one of them has taken us up on the offer - in fact the vast majority of them seem to have no interest whatsoever in the industry they are studying to join.
We have also provided all of them with portfolio books, and instructed them to take lots of pictures of the work they are doing, and write descriptions of it - so at interviews, they have something to show in addition to a CV and their exam results. Again - I have a lot of very empty portfolios on the shelf here!
Colleges themselves are a mixed bag - one college has been in to see us twice, conducted the student interviews and signed off on the hours done. It has been a particular bone of contention for us with the colleges, that "our" students have done the time and learn the skills - but that their final results do not reflect this. This is exacerbated by the fact that a good 60% of their students on the same course haven't bothered to get a placement and are eligible for the same end of course results.
The other college isn't the slightest bit interested, and other than orchestrating the placement - has done nothing for over 14 months (I've even chased them up for a visit multiple times, and they don't call back).
We are persevering with it, albeit don't feel that we're making much difference (or are even noticed) and the students themselves (whilst not showing any interest in learning any new skills) are grateful for the placements and are mostly very pleasant (in our case) lads.
From our point of view, at the very least - It enabled us to employ a couple of part time staff, that we can teach new skills in a relatively short space of time.
I would also caution that the vast majority of the students we've seen, are woefully unprepared for life in the workplace (so be prepared to have a lot of conversations regarding air-pods, time spent wasting time, attitude and mistakes that are repeated many more times than is acceptable).
The students were going to be doing T-levels, but one college tried them for a year and went back to BTEC level 3, the other college hasn't even bothered with T-levels.
As a business we did it, as I wanted to try and put something back as we're doing OK - and having tried to employ young people in the past who were pretty uninspiring, wanted to try see if we could make a difference and help.
I started off a few years back as an enterprise advisor to a local school. Unfortunately they were very keen on the idea of the "gatsby points" they got for having an enterprise advisor. However, they weren't so keen on puting any effort into actually helping the kids learn skills (icing on the cake was when we'd organised for local business owners to come in one evening to give the 6th former's interview experience - and the school decided at the last minute that they wanted to do it at 3pm so they didn't have to stay late - and unsurprisingly all the interviewers were still at work).
We were then approached by a local college, to see if we could offer work placements for 16-18 year old students.
So how's it gone. Hmm that's a really tricky question to answer honestly.
If I just go for what it looks like we've achieved. Since 2021 we've had 9 students (including the current two)
- Five of the students have gone on to University (and have said the experience they got really helped).
- One student turned up for a couple of days, spent the time staring into space - and when we suggested that this maybe wasn't for him, acted very surprised and said "this is the 2nd time this has happened to me now"
- One student asked if we could act as a reference for him to one of our clients for weekend work. He got offered the job, and then didn't turn up for the days first aid course they'd paid for. When we asked him why he hadn't turned up (couldn't be bothered), and explained that it made us look bad - his mum told him to quit immediately, and then she spent a month making people's lives an utter misery for "disrespecting him"
- The current two students are both pleasant and have learnt a lot.
The work placements the college expect you to offer, are unpaid for a limited number of hours. From our perspective we wanted it to work for both parties, so instead of doing this - we agreed with the college(s) that we would offer the students paid part time jobs for the two days a week that they weren't at college. This allows us to train and retain the staff for a couple of years, and the students to have a paid job (with holidays) for the duration of their college term.
Maybe we set out with very rose tinted spectacles - as part of the package we have offered to teach all of our students the basics of, programming, circuit board layouts, 3d CAD and a lot of other engineering skills we felt would be invaluable to them in their future careers. Not one of them has taken us up on the offer - in fact the vast majority of them seem to have no interest whatsoever in the industry they are studying to join.
We have also provided all of them with portfolio books, and instructed them to take lots of pictures of the work they are doing, and write descriptions of it - so at interviews, they have something to show in addition to a CV and their exam results. Again - I have a lot of very empty portfolios on the shelf here!
Colleges themselves are a mixed bag - one college has been in to see us twice, conducted the student interviews and signed off on the hours done. It has been a particular bone of contention for us with the colleges, that "our" students have done the time and learn the skills - but that their final results do not reflect this. This is exacerbated by the fact that a good 60% of their students on the same course haven't bothered to get a placement and are eligible for the same end of course results.
The other college isn't the slightest bit interested, and other than orchestrating the placement - has done nothing for over 14 months (I've even chased them up for a visit multiple times, and they don't call back).
We are persevering with it, albeit don't feel that we're making much difference (or are even noticed) and the students themselves (whilst not showing any interest in learning any new skills) are grateful for the placements and are mostly very pleasant (in our case) lads.
From our point of view, at the very least - It enabled us to employ a couple of part time staff, that we can teach new skills in a relatively short space of time.
I would also caution that the vast majority of the students we've seen, are woefully unprepared for life in the workplace (so be prepared to have a lot of conversations regarding air-pods, time spent wasting time, attitude and mistakes that are repeated many more times than is acceptable).
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