Been an interesting year for us at BXL-main impacts remain the seeming hiatus on funding as the General Election looms, and cuts in spending causing cuts in programmes.

But, there is a lot of work out there to do, and after all we were set up by the Local Authorities, LSC, other key partners, as a major social enterprise in the region to support the employability agenda..

so…we’d better keep going out and reminding people why we are here. We are looking at ways of creating a step change in the infrastructure connecting business and young people, and helping the local authority build social support capacity for the future.

more another day..

it is though a challenge to create content that appeals to a wide range of readers, so we aim to keep a standard layout so people become familiar with the look and feel, but change the lead articles, customised for our three key audiences of employers, educators and delivery partners.

is that the way to do it, or should we use discontinuity and humour more often? I’d be interested to know..

The lads were there for their Work Experience prep day, and were then off for a couple of weeks in the world of work-I hope they remember the two main things I told them-it’s ok to be nervous, and there isn’t such a thing as a stupid question (unless the same one is asked too many times). They were impeccably behaved when I spoke to them, and I heard the rest of the day turned out well.

I met the new Head briefly-Mr Quinn-and am impressed by the impact he’s already had in his short time there. I hope to see him again early in the new year to see what else we can develop with the school to find new ways of creating better support for the WRL and WEX needed by young people.

TGBS-staff and lads-you are doing a great job-am proud to say I went there.

trouble is, I will (as I have done for the last couple of years) be a grey haired bloke stood at the front blah-ing about how this use to be his school and live round there..trying to find something that might inspire or for the lads to find relevant to them.

so this year I will talk about my own work experience (you know the one..have changed the blog photo for now as a reminder)

what were my learnings from my own work experience?

-I had to find my own work placement, but I knew the sort of thing i was looking for. Who does that for young people? How random are their work placements because there is a lack of thought?

-I had set my own objectives for what I was hoping to achieve, but had no idea if it was possible. How are YP helped to define their objectives when they have no idea what work looks like in the first place?

-I had no idea what to expect from the experience..which contributed to the nerves. The list went something like..where do I go, how do I get there, will I be late, what do I wear/when do I wear it, will they like me, will I be able to do what they ask me, will I understand what is going on, what happens if I don’t like it, who do I turn to if it gets too much/not what I thought…

So who (on average) helps calm YP’s nerves and boost confidence before/during the event?

Afterwards..well, I think I was able to evaluate whether it had worked, and what I had learned. This as trainers and educators know (reflection) is an important part of the consolidation of learning. How many YP are given that opportunity to reflect and consolidate knowledge gained? Asked what it now means (through a coaching process) for them as individuals and what they are now going to do differently?

At BXL we can help both adults and young people through this process, often by the assignment of a key worker-but of course the funding has to come from somewhere, and it certainly isn’t available to all the 10-15,000 YP who need a placement every year in Birmingham and Solihull.

So who else can help..?

-School-many schools do run WEX preparation and have WEX coordinators who manage the process very well

-parents..but again, if parents haven’t got guidelines for work experience, it can make it harder to contribute. We’ll have a look at providing some parental guidance for WEX next

employers-we’ve just published some guidelines for employers-a lot of it is Health and Safety related, but the preparation and process I’ve described above actually is the core experience that has the value for YP..have a look here for more info

so off to work now for the day job.. I will update tomorrow after my visit!

We used the opportunity to both give an overview of what the major brokers have on offer for working between businesses and schools, and to have a lively debate on what is currently working/what the gaps are in what is on offer.

We had great contributions from many schools, colleges, employers and brokers-so thanks to all who attended.

What next? We will capture the outputs and share these via our next newsletter in December-but as a summary:

-we need to create more ‘in school’ work experiences

-we need to create more/consistent ‘out of school’ work experiences eg through the Partnership Centre model

-employers, young people and educators need more help in preparing for work experience placements, and how to leverage the learning better/create opportunities for linking to accreditation

The next Exchange event is in February-again, we will notify more in due course via our websites and email newsletters.

This is a quarterly event designed to be ‘the’ place where educators, businesses and brokers can exchange ideas and debate priorities.

Apart from demystifying the current potentially confusing offers of interventions from brokers such as CBI, BITC, the Chamber, YE and ourselves, we will be looking at how we support creating a positive step change in the work experience that our young people in this region can access.

On the day BXL will also launch guidelines for employers who support youngsters in work experience, as changing government policy has created uncertainty in both educators and employers about obligations and risk assessments.

In the meantime you can always access advice through our website or offices through www.ebpartnership.org.uk

the starter:

foamed pea soup with truffle oil, hand made cheese straw, yummy bread

the fish course (in prep)!

thai fishcakes in prep-just deep fried

the main course:

roast belly of pork, bacon and potato cake, roast cherry tomatos, asparagus, swede, curried apple

the puddings (big yum):

rhubarb crumble with white choc ice cream, triple choc muffin, spotted dick and custard

for me, it was a really exciting afternoon seeing it all come together, then to really see the finished articles as we plated up the meals and they were taken out to the diners.

Clive gave me 8.5/10, which was very kind…and a round of applause from the diners!

What did I learn? Kitchens aren’t as shouty as on TV, there is more planning than I’d anticipated, there is a lot of clever re-use of food I hadn’t thought about, and I truffle oil has a fantastic smell!

Proper chefs are really clever, hard working people, who have done a lot of training to get to where they have.

The dishes turned out well, and I will repeat another day all of them at some point.

more tomorrow!