Big Ideas

https://lnkd.in/gVE8F2rr

A shout out for all the Local Authority teams we've been talking to over the summer. We are inspired by meeting dedicated schools improvement leads around the country. From South Tyneside Council to Southampton City Council, everyone’s creating meaningful opportunities for young people. It's been exciting to work with Barking & Dagenham London Borough Council this year on food in the curriculum - looking ahead to the relocation of Billingsgate and Spitalfields to the borough - and we are looking forward to bringing We Can Be: Engineers to schools with Bolton Council and RAFYouthSTEM Team. We’ll be sending out details of the projects we have coming up in the autumn including STEM enrichment and commemoration and we’ll be thinking about what you’ve told us about the challenges young people face and how you focus on those with the greatest need. Camden Council, Leeds City Council, Manchester City Council, Essex County Council, Nottinghamshire County Council, Westminster City Council, Hammersmith & Fulham Council, Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.

This week we are all facing one of the biggest challenges in community cohesion in living memory. We are seeing horrendous scenes of violence and racism across the country. Azeem Rafiq is known for calling out racism in the UK and has been targeted for doing so, to the point where he and his family are no longer based here. They happen to be here right now and last night spoke powerfully on Newsnight about what it’s been like these past days. He spoke about how people are afraid to go out, how they won’t leave the house unless everyone knows where they are going and when they’ll be back. Katie Razell asked him, are you saying you are changing everyday behaviour? Yes, he said and gave the simple example of not wanting his wife to pay at the petrol station on her own, bringing home the level of insecurity to every decision, every action. The racism and the violence - it’s tempting to say, it’s beyond words, but it isn’t. It is abhorrent, criminal and cannot be tolerated. And it’s never been more important to work together to reinforce our communities, to protect, respect and value everyone and to push out the ideology of extremism. Now is the time to rise to the challenge. We already work with schools in affected areas Bolton, Darlington, Manchester, Middlesbrough, Plymouth, Sefton, Sheffield, Sunderland, and many other towns and cities across the UK and are developing ideas to support young people as they return to school at the end of the summer. As an organisation we specialise in and are committed to social justice and inclusion. https://lnkd.in/e3DHvMmQ

A technology which will reshape economies, societies and international relations. Its implications are astonishing. Yes AI. In December, Aspire to Engineer will give classes across the UK an opportunity to quiz world-leading experts on AI, thanks to Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851. It’s young people who will most effected by the impact of AI across the board - a chance for them to engage with the excitement and to have a conversation about what it all means for us and how we should balance the opportunities with the risks. Department for Science, Innovation and Technology Department for Education Department for Culture, Media and Sport Peter Kyle Matt Clifford https://lnkd.in/ebNBxG3J

A technology which will reshape economies, societies and international relations. Its implications are astonishing. Yes AI. In December, Aspire to Engineer will give classes across the UK an opportunity to quiz world-leading experts on AI, thanks to Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851. It’s young people who will most effected by the impact of AI across the board - a chance for them to engage with the excitement and to have a conversation about what it all means for us and how we should balance the opportunities with the risks. Department for Science, Innovation and Technology Department for Education Department for Culture, Media and Sport Peter Kyle Matt Clifford https://lnkd.in/ebNBxG3J

Calling all HM Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) #LSMs, #Employment Leads, Education Managers and Heads of #Education, #Skills and #Work! I'd love to speak to you about Work Stories. A new Ministry of Justice UK funded employability and enrichment course, available on the Virtual Campus and free for all. Watch the trailer here: https://lnkd.in/gk553tyb If you like the sound of Work Stories by Big Ideas, and want to know how we can support it's deployment in your prison, please get in touch with me on [email protected]. Please share with your networks too! We want feedback from your prison learners. #prisoneducation #reducingreoffedning #rehabilitation #employability #careerseducation #hmpps #ukprisons

Congratulations to Dorothy Barley Junior Academy for winning the trip to ReFood UK in Dagenham as part of #CookingUpTheCurriculum 🤩 Looks like you had a great time learning about how food waste can be converted into renewable energy! London Borough of Barking and Dagenham

Since the Arts Council England piece from Nicholas Serota in The Observer last week, we have been thinking about the gulf between Arts and STEM careers engagement. At Big Ideas we have been working with NASA - National Aeronautics and Space Administration engineers, Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 Fellows, RAFYouthSTEM Team Ambassadors, Royal Society of Chemistry and Imperial College London academics to spark interest and aspiration in the STEM field. We know that there is meaningful and well paid work for young people if they choose STEM study and a STEM career. Our fabulous Big Ideas board has challenged us to do the same for the Arts. It’s thrown up a lot of questions. There isn’t the same structure in the creative industries. Skills, yes. Passion, yes. Stable, paid employment? Maybe. So, if we can’t direct towards a career pathway, should we be directing at all? We know that the creative industries make significant contributions to the UK economy, but what about the UK Creative Industry workforce? For many it is zero hours contracts, freelancing and being offered unpaid or low paid ‘opportunities’ with a strong whiff of exploitation. Why can’t the Creative sector offer more? Value, nurture and develop the workforce in a creative and empowering environment. Like they do in STEM. University of East London Rosemary Stott Dominic Hingorani Dekan Apajee Peter Bazalgette Department for Culture, Media and Sport Peter Brathwaite https://lnkd.in/e4Az-kAj

🚨Free careers resources for secondary schools🚨 Download the Flight for All Resources to use next academic year. Get behind the scenes in the workplace with young people and use the fun activities to build confidence and skills with your class. Fill in this form for access: https://lnkd.in/eNYtkVja Department for Transport (DfT), United Kingdom and the Civil Aviation Authority

Fred is one of the ex-prisoners who took part in Work Stories, an exciting project just launched for the Ministry of Justice from their digital innovation fund. Work Stories is a new online education offer in all England prisons, it’s a series of five films with learning modules. Everything is co-produced with motivated and impressive ex-prisoners, like Fred, who shared their stories, their insights and their recommendations. It mean the films, the resources, the learning modules are all informed by lived experience; it’s coming from the people who know best. This is our co-production model and it sits at the heart of our approach. Fred came in to see us at the office last week and we asked him what he thought about the co-production process. This is what he said: “I felt like I was part of the process, like it’s in my hands now. I can give my first hand experience. It makes me feel proud, once I've seen the end product, and then it's like I made this, I was part of this. Inclusion, to me, means being a part of the process, not from, like, a backseat position, it's ideas, your perspective, knowledge, or even the practical side of things, being there, that's what inclusion means to me. It's easy to feel left out or you're not getting your point across or you're not included. But if you can play some kind of role, then that's inclusion.” We’ve been thinking about this. Co-production is much more than a process, it’s more than a way to make meaningful quality resources, it’s purpose.