Project: Aim Higher, Guilsborough School

Work experience combined with effective mentoring gives pre-NEETs a glimpse of their potential

Guilsborough School is a secondary school and specialist technology college which offers a strong vocational curriculum alongside traditional academic subjects. The ESF-funded programme, Aim Higher, has enabled them to further extend this focus through a programme of support to students identified as being in danger of becoming NEET. Combining one-to-one mentoring and work experience placements matched to individual interests and abilities, they have created a network of support and a welcoming, positive environment in which these young people regain their self-respect, enthusiasm and commitment to employment-focused education or training, or work.

Project feature

Despite vigorous efforts to engage students in a learning programme appropriate to their abilities, some student may slip through the educational system. Years 10 and 11 is a critical time for extending assistance to these young people, as there is still time to help them understand their options and make appropriate choices for their path in life.

The Aim Higher programme helps those most in need to break down barriers that may be preventing them from fulfilling their potential, and to think realistically about their future. The head of year for Year 10 identifies students who appear to be unlikely to continue after secondary school into further education, training or employment, perhaps through lack of attendance, interest or having trouble coping. These students are offered the opportunity to undertake work experience, supported by mentoring throughout the programme.

After talking through the commitment required by the student for the work experience placement, participants must sign an agreement outlining basic requirements, including standards of behaviour, dress, attendance and absence notification. This agreement is made with Connexions, with whom the Guilsborough School work closely and who help to identify and organise suitable work placements utilising their database.

A key to the programme’s success is the mentoring team who listen compassionately and lead the participant to consider their options. Discussions encompass all areas, including emotional or social problems, in a supportive ecology in which they are treated with respect and value. They start to see that the choices they make now will have consequences in the future, and begin to think more responsibly about what they want to do and become. Work experience gives them a window into seeing what the world is like, to see what opportunities there are and to consider what part they might wish to play. Whereas most of the participants had low self-esteem when they started the programme, they have grown in confidence, behaving with greater maturity, and have become more decisive and able to do things for themselves. They have not only become stronger individually from their mentoring sessions and work experience but have benefited from their collective association with each other and the strong positive social identity of the group as a whole – a far cry from the experience of failure or being stigmatised as those who are less able.

The project is funded for a total of 42 participants – 28 from Guilsborough School (14 per year over two years) and 14 from Roade School. Of the first year group of 14 from Guilsborough School, 11 went on to full-time courses at FE colleges or sixth form, two got jobs, and one became an apprentice hairdresser.

Contact details

Mrs Wendy Donovan and Mrs Cherry Gunn,
Guilsborough School
West Haddon Road, Guilsborough, Northants, NN6 8QE
(01604) 740641
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