Motivating the next generation through inspirational talks

We match speakers to schools/colleges and Independent Training Providers (ITPs) based on a range of criteria, including where they are based in relation to your school/college or ITP and their availability. Our main aim with an in-person talk is to introduce state-educated students to leading professionals they would otherwise not have access to. This means there will be a benefit to your school/college or ITP in hosting any speaker from our network. Once you have applied to host a speaker, we may contact you at any time to propose a speaker engagement. If we contact you and you are unable to accept the proposed session, we would hugely appreciate your timely response to either accept or decline the invitation so that we can extend the same opportunity to another school/college or ITP. If you decline an invitation, we will continue to keep your request open and get in touch again in the future with an alternative.

Please note that once you have registered and applied to host a talk, we may also contact you to invite your school/college or ITP to host a live broadcast with one of our speakers.

Our in-person talks, live broadcasts, and industry spotlight talks are exclusively available to educators and young people from state schools/colleges and Independent Training Providers (ITPs). There is no charge for these services but schools/colleges and ITPs must first register with our charity to use them. Our online broadcast library is publicly available on our website and there is no charge to access and view replays of previous broadcasts.

All of the speakers and employers featured in this programme kindly donate their time to lead a talk, broadcast, or workshop on our behalf. This requires careful scheduling for all live events, especially in-person events that require speakers to travel.

Once you have applied to host a speaker at your school/college or Independent Training Provider (ITP), we will email you once we have matched you to a speaker. We will notify you using the contact details you provide as part of the registration process, so please ensure that you provide accurate contact information when submitting your application.

Please note that once you have applied to host a speaker, we may contact you at any time to propose a speaker engagement. If we contact you and you are unable to accept the proposed session, we would hugely appreciate your timely response to either accept or decline the invitation so that we can extend the same opportunity to another school/college or ITP. If you decline an invitation, we will continue to keep your request open and get in touch again in the future with an alternative.

Speakers for Schools offer inspirational talks with leading professionals in the form of live in-person talks, live virtual broadcasts, live industry spotlight talks, and recorded sessions that can be accessed online. Our speakers represent a wide range of industries and also include politicians and other high-profile individuals who wish to share their stories to inspire young people from state schools and colleges. Speakers may draw on personal experiences from their career as well as other aspects of their lived experience.

In terms of format, our talks are around 60 minutes long. They are structured either as ‘fireside chat’ or a talk followed by a moderated Q&A.

Not all talks are suitable for all year groups as they vary by topic and some deal with more sensitive topics than others. Where your school is hosting a talk, this will be discussed with you in advance. Where you are registering for a live broadcast or planning to play students a recorded session from our broadcast library, please make sure that you read the talk’s description in full to check its content is appropriate to your student audience.

We do not operate as a speaker bureau and unfortunately, we cannot process requests for specific speakers to give talks at your school/college or Independent Training Provider (ITP). All our guest speakers kindly donate their time to support our charity and we serve a large network of schools/colleges and ITPs that are geographically dispersed across the UK. Our main aim with an in-person talk is to introduce state-educated students to leading professionals they would otherwise not have access to. This means there will be a benefit to your school/college or ITP in hosting any speaker from our network. Our team will always do their best to ensure that we propose appropriate matches.

We do not operate as a speaker bureau and unfortunately, we cannot process requests for speakers to give talks at your school/college or Independent Training Provider (ITP) for specific dates or events. All our guest speakers kindly donate their time to support our charity and we serve a large network of schools and colleges that are geographically dispersed across the UK.

Once you have submitted a request to host a speaker for an in-person talk, we may contact you at any time to propose a speaker engagement. If we contact you and you are unable to accept the proposed session, we would hugely appreciate your timely response to either accept or decline the invitation so that we can extend the same opportunity to another school/college or ITP. If you decline an invitation, we will continue to keep your request open and get in touch again in the future to propose an alternative speaker engagement.

Speakers for Schools do not carry out DBS checks on our speakers or employers. Any visit to your school/college or Independent Training Provider (ITP) for an in-person talk should be treated as a chaperoned event and properly supervised by your staff in line with your establishment’s visitor policy.

In the case that your school/college or ITP participates in a live broadcast with one of our speakers or joins a discovery workshop with one of our employers, a member of the Speakers for Schools team will moderate the online event. In the case of our live broadcasts, the chat function and audience cameras and mics will be disabled and all questions from students for the speaker/employer will be anonymised and asked on their behalf.