Empowering Parents for Children's Success | Speakers for Schools

Want your child to get a head start in life?

We are a youth charity that believes every young person should have the opportunity to succeed and reach their potential. Scroll down to discover free resources that can help set your child on the path to reaching their career potential.

How can we help your child?

Our charity exists to help your child carve their own path in life. If your child attends a UK state secondary school or college, click on the tiles below to explore our latest work experience opportunities or browse our library of inspirational talks. You will need to make sure your child’s school is registered with us to take full advantage of what we have to offer.

Who benefits from what we offer?

Your child and the employers we work with! The more young people from state schools and colleges that we can support into careers they love, the more we all stand to benefit from having a more diverse and productive workforce. Without our charity’s help, it can be hard for some young people to get ahead or even imagine themselves in certain careers.

Help your child learn about a wider range of career options
Get them in front of big-name businesses wherever they live
Boost your child’s skills and confidence
Get evidence for your child’s CV, personal statement, apprenticeship or job application
Enable your child to find careers that really suit them
Get free support to help your child reach their potential

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Your top 3 questions answered

Who is Speakers for Schools?

Launched in 2010 by ITV’s Political Editor Robert Peston, Speakers for Schools is a youth social mobility charity that seeks to raise career ambitions among young people from less privileged backgrounds across the UK, and provide the necessary inspiration, experience and networking opportunities for them to succeed.

 

We provide support in the form of local, national and UK-wide opportunities to young people from state schools and colleges at no cost to students, parents/carers or your child’s school/college. Since launch, we have already supported more than 1.3 million young people.

 

Since the start of the pandemic, we have partnered with over 1,000 employers to offer industry-leading virtual work experience to young people in every region of the UK. We already work with over 4,121 schools and colleges in the UK.

 

If your child attends a UK state secondary school or college, they are eligible to access our programmes.

Why should you encourage your child to take part in Speakers For Schools programmes?

There are many good reasons why you should encourage your child to participate, but here are our top four. Click on the bullet points below to reveal more detail.

    • The playing field is not level when it comes to equity of access to opportunity – so let’s make sure your child doesn’t miss out!
Taking part in Speakers for Schools’ programmes can improve your child’s access to opportunities to expand their horizons and increase their cultural and social capital with a view to also improving their employment outcomes.
    • The job market has changed – so let’s help your child prepare for a ’portfolio career’
Our programmes are designed to help young people learn about lots of different roles in lots of different industries, so they can choose the right fit for them at this point in their life while also having a better appreciation of other options available to them in their future.
    • It takes time to explore the different career options – so let’s ensure your child has the best possible start
Engaging with our programmes from a young age (11+) means that your child can access more opportunities to build their awareness of careers and the world of work throughout their secondary school and college education. This means that they will be better placed to make more informed career choices based on practical experience and directly acquired knowledge.
    • The modern workplace has changed – so let’s help your child develop a skill set to match
Our programmes support young people in understanding the changing needs of employers and also in developing their own skill sets in a way that will appeal to future employers.

How can your child get the most out of our programmes?

Each of our programmes has been specially designed to provide lots of free opportunities for young people to supplement the careers education they receive while still in school. Young people can pick and choose opportunities from any of the age-appropriate opportunities across our programmes, doing as little or as much as they want when they want.

    • Use our Experience programme to improve your child’s employment outcomes
We know that having multiple experiences of the world of work improves employment outcomes for young people when they enter the job market. We also know that additional school-mediated engagements with employers can positively impact a young person’s future earnings (up to 1.6% increase) and reduce their chance of becoming NEET by around 9%. Our Experience programme supports young people to access multiple opportunities to meet employers from a wide range of industries to learn about
    • Use our Inspiration programme to motivate your child to achieve
We know that ‘careers talks with employers’ can improve young people’s education performance as the result of linking the curriculum to the real world. Listening to inspirational talks through our Inspiration programme helps to provide context for young people so that they can look beyond the classroom and increase confidence in their own abilities. The research shows that there is a direct link between the career talks and students’ outperforming their predicted grades, the equivalent of one student in a class of 25 beating their predictions by one grade as a result of the careers talks.

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