New Working Class

SPRING BREAK Remarkable article in today’s Sunday Times business section about the race for internships - Spring, Summer, even Winter - to get ahead in the job market. Almost as soon as a student hits university, it would suggest the pressure to line up internships overrides - and perhaps even directly conflicts with - many of the objectives of continuing in education. What is dubbed an ‘Insight experience’ for the seller is effectively risk management for the buyer - employers get some insight into the prospect pool, before they commit to purchase the fresh talent. And the ‘whatever it takes’ cortisol spike of students wanting to get ahead on the work ladder - ready or not - to manage the risk of being left behind, whilst gaining a little insight into a prospective market or employer. In many respects, it makes a lot of sense. Yet… Is the once premium currency of graduates shifting that fast? The rat race has been brought forward a couple of years. Who wins over the long haul? Do we need to apply some (Spring) brakes? As employers and parents, what do you think? New Working Class #ratrace #riskmanagement #talentpool #springbreak #internships #wheredidyouthgo?

PUBLIC SERVICE ANNOUNCEMENT Sometimes we just have to acknowledge our beloved friends and colleagues who operate in service: Sarah Parsonage. Providing a safe space for people to have conversations they would traditionally fear to have at home or at work, about how they can participate more profitably in the world… in service. This piece of street art by Jody in Bristol embodies a place-based approach to mental health, which kicked off with a cross-stakeholder conversation last week: Who is responsible for our mental health? What is our social contract for driving positive mental health? A call to conversation. ✊🎩 One Question #credit #service #mentalhealth #leadership

THOSE WHO CAN DO, TEACH At the Royal Festival Hall this morning, the University of Roehampton School of Business & Law held its Graduation ceremony. As a Visiting Lecturer for Management Consulting Skills and a subsequent module for a real-life MC project in the last year, I was old-man proud to see my precious students embrace the gown and headwear cosplay. It was emosh. One particular team, dubbed Fox Force Five, are photo-bombed below. I can thoroughly recommend each of them to you as graduate employees. Sharp, ambitious, compassionate and joyful souls, who deserve their place in the world. They are ready. They will not fail you. But - as a car alarm about the need for more pathways through education into workplace, embodied in New Working Class as one such model - this post is really a call to arms to my network. 🎙️🛎️ The adage 'those who can't do, teach' is evidently 🐮💩. It's a misquote of Aristotle saying 'Those who can, do. Those who understand, teach.' The impetus for professionals and practitioners to lean in to the next generation is growing every single day - to help our young make better sense of workplace and business reality over academic theory, let alone to shepherd those who otherwise get cut adrift (and risk becoming economically inactive) across the chasm. If you were 21 today, would you go into fight, flight or freeze? Step into the breach. Go offer your services at Schools, Colleges and Universities. Bring your brat, brains and brawn. Bring your scars. Bring your partnership. Bring your brand. Bring your team's talents. Persevere to find a way in. Utilise these untrammelled minds to help explore and shape your market opportunities or organisational challenges. Life does not get more fulfilling than to be in service to those who will inherit what we create - and perhaps slay a few of our monsters. These GenZ and GenA leaders of tomorrow will be shepherding us in our dotage. So give them the energy and respect they deserve today. ✊🎩 #teaching #learning #lifeskills

😳 FIGHT 🙄 FLIGHT 😬 FREEZE OR FIGURE IT OUT? If we're honest with ourselves, most of us feel stuck. Here's a 4-point plan to get unstuck. 1. Choose a single summer's day in a cool new joint in Wandsworth. 2. Choose to come and sit with me, and up to seven others for a few hours. 3. Choose to lean into it - quietly, safely, vulnerably, intently. 4. Choose to rediscover your mojo. Trust me when I say it's fun. And the plan works. ✊🎩 New Working Class

BEST DAYS OF YOUR LIFE The myth of the University experience. As my son hits peak A-level, to achieve his dream of accessing that myth, like many parents i am hitting peak neurosis that the experience will be far from ‘peak’ (as my son would say). And the investment/debt may not pay off. This new report by Jedidajah Otte in The Guardian speaks to many students. A chorus that chimes with my experience of the last two years as a visiting lecturer. It’s a hard day’s night. And despite best intentions, some students just check out - ‘what’s the point?’ The systemic change required to resolve those conflicts is just too great for our institutions - the cash is strapped and the policy cavalry has yet to leave the Garrison. National service is no answer. As the sector manages decline, it feels like hope is dwindling for all stakeholders. Which is always the best time to be radical in a category. Let’s redesign HE from its grassiest of roots. Why stand back when you could lean in to help rethink it? Join us. New Working Class

CAT AND MOUSE There is so much indignant chatter about 'Mickey Mouse' degrees in the policy versus provider stand-off. Each side casting aspersions over the intent and efficacy of branding so many unnamed, undefined degree programmes valueless - against cold hard metrics of employability and arbitrary salary benchmarking. It was therefore refreshing to read Observer columnist Kenan Malik's opinion piece this weekend, which in part turned attention to the noble apprenticeship - the 'Top Cat' alternative to traditional degrees. Officer Dibble and his fellow boys in blue keep making pledges to cull the infestation of mice, but seem to have ignored their duty to manage the wiley alleycat population. TC, Benny the Ball, Choo Choo, Brain, Fancy-Fancy and Spook - all the wheelers and dealers in apprenticeship levies. Because a cursory scan of Malik's apprenticeship stats suggest a cartoon caper is quietly unfolding: A declining number of apprentices: 509,400 in 2015/16 vs 337,100 in 2022/23 Almost 50% are over-25s Increasing drop out: 54% completed their training and assessment in 2022/23, with many citing poor quality of training An EDSK (edsk.org) think tank reported: 1 in 5 apprentices, and more than 25% on entry-level apprenticeships, claimed 'no on-the-job training at all from their employer' Apprentices often 'treated as workers, not learners' Apprentices forced into 'low-skill, low-level positions while being paid far less than the national minimum wage' ...And a killer sign off: 'Many current apprenticeships have nothing to do with real occupations... with some employers choosing instead to invent fake job titles to access apprenticeship funding'. You might wonder if there is a Wild West among the garbage cans? TC himself would say: 'Why Officer Dibble, you look positively nauseating. Is something the matter?' The truth, perhaps? We need to start a different storyline. With some of the partnerships we expect to announce in the coming weeks, I am confident our transitional programme to on-board people into Lifelong Learning will be a number one super guy. New Working Class

MAIRIE DEUX Thanks to all who attended today’s New Working Class second Townhall. Another inspiring conversation exploring our Venture Your Self sprint programme to empower people to: Own their story 📖 Own their learning 🧠 Own their performance 🎭 Own their place 💺 To catch those in transitional moments who are barely surviving, not thriving. And create an intimate safe space to build self-worth, confidence and a new peer network. DM me if you want to know more. ✊🎩

BATTLE OF THE BULGE Another foghorn sounding in The Financial Times. Or is it just me again? The bulge years that my 18 year old son swims in are creating a wave of school leavers crashing over the threshold of higher education. 522k becomes 683k in 2030-31. An 18% rise in the number of 16-18 year olds heading into FE or HE. …Just as the real term funding crisis costs institutions up to £2.5k per domestic student (according to tbe Russell Group) - and that may well double by 2030. Leaks everywhere. Meantime, many of our pedagogical anchors are being dragged into deeper waters, seemingly not being fit for purpose in the new world of work. If ever there was an election policy battleground, remedying the disconnect between education and employment might change the way we look at funding - public and private. ‘Technical excellence’ might be a Whitehall bingo winner for any chat about educational reform, even if a 23% drop in skills funding makes it appear empty rhetoric. But it fails to address the more existential challenges to our young team: ‘turning up’. Ask them yourself. (And while you are at it, ask them if they are even going to vote?) They know the myth of careerism (the traditional straight line to station, success and security) is BS. They see we are all learning the hard way - lifelong apprentices. Scarred and a little scared. Our kids can see it in our elevens. It is not a good look. So rather than reform our way into vocational and technical safety at 18, might we incentivise squiggly curiosity? Should we insist on the pursuit of technically correct answers, or model how to be unafraid to ask better questions - the joy of not knowing? Surely it is time to focus on ol’fashioned Life Skills. They will offer the best foundations for developing future technical knowhow, when and where we need it as we progress in life. But more importantly, help the young make active choices in leaning in to work and civic life. Without reform around how to learn life skills, i fear we will all contine to have that sinking feeling. (Perhaps we need a campaign office?) New Working Class