Enterprise:101 - Partnerships and Opportunities

PARTNERSHIP WORKING

The aim of a partnership is to support understanding in learning for young people. Partnerships are all unique and how they form will be a collaborative effort that considers the needs and realistic constraints of those involved. Despite this, they are generally flexible in the ‘give and take’ relationship that forms and schools may choose to develop multiple partnerships with a range of employers.

In 2013, the School Improvement Partnership Programme was launched by Education Scotland and draws upon international educational research and practice that demonstrates that the most effective school improvements are led by teachers and school leaders working in partnership and collaboration with like-minded professionals.

School-employer partnerships are a crucial part of the Developing the Young Workforce (DYW) strategy and can bring a whole range of benefits, including developing learning and teaching by bringing real-life contexts into the classroom, offering a great insight into the local labour market with localised career information and the opportunity to offer CLPL for teaching staff in enhancing skills through employer knowledge.

Schools all now have a dedicated member of staff responsible for supporting the DYW agenda and helping to forge these partnerships with organisations both locally and on a larger scale where possible. Partnerships can also be created within cluster groups, enabling secondary and primary colleagues to work collaboratively – this is also commonly done with college partnerships to develop and deliver senior-phase personal learning and achievement opportunities.

HOW DO I ESTABLISH PARTNERSHIPS?

Planning is key, and not only because other schools in your area will be looking towards the same employers. The best partnerships will be nurtured beyond the course of the academic year, and won’t be a one-off intervention.

Find out whether any parents are self-employed or have links to local entrepreneurs. As a department, or wider school, consider the needs of your learners and identify whether the partnerships would be department-specific or whether they could benefit multiple curricular areas. This is your DYW co-ordinator’s area of expertise, so work with them to consider what would complement the learning already being done.

Developing the Young Workforce’s School/Employer Partnership Guidance for Schools (2015) highlights the benefits of meaningful and productive partnerships and suggests practical steps for your consideration. It states that quality partnerships will bring mutual benefit, should evolve to respond to local circumstances and suggests some ways to get started.

On the Scotland’s Enterprising Schools Partners page, you will find more than 40 local and regional partners that have already pledged to support enterprise within schools and many examples of this in a real-world setting can be found in our Interesting Practice session.

If we look at partnership working in a broader term, this can also benefit you as a practitioner. By partnering – or co-working – with others, you can expand your own knowledge and offer a new perspective for learners. This could be done in an interdepartmental sense, cross-departmental to begin developing cross curricular learning, or even as a regional cohort of like-minded practitioners.

This can be daunting to initiate, but the benefits far outweigh the negatives.

Top Tips

• We have expanded our professional learning suite of courses to include opportunities for learning as collaborative, in-depth professional dialogue and reflection to support you.

• Scotland’s Enterprising Schools MS Team on Glow offers professional learning, opportunities to connect with other educators, and a safe space to share resources and advice. Join now with the code: x19npff.

HOW CAN I IDENTIFY OPPORTUNITIES?

It’s easier said than done but try using your imagination!

There are no hard and fast rules when it comes to being an enterprising educator; as long as you are adding value for students through the approach you take, learners will be able to develop these key enterprising skills organically. However, by being explicit about our learning objectives we have the ability to measure impact, evaluate the success of our teaching and thus improve learning. (Hattie, 2014).

Whether you are in an early years, primary or secondary setting, be openminded about how to involve different subjects, departments and partners in enterprise activity. You could take your jumping off point as an outcome, lesson or topic and build from there. Your learners might want to solve a problem in their local community, or you may be studying a novel or film in which the protagonist demonstrates an entrepreneurial mindset.

Sign up as a member of Scotland’s Enterprising Schools' online community to keep up-to-date with news surrounding enterprise education and find inspiration from Interesting Practice case studies. Follow us on social media @ScotEntSchools and tag us in your own news. Many schools have generated new opportunities by increasing their online presence.