Working with partners
Enterprise education can enhance teaching and learning by building and
extending business and community links. This page outlines various types of
partners, and includes examples illustrating work in progress from a sample of
enterprise pathfinder schools.
Types of partners include:
- other schools and providers of education and training, for example to share resources, expertise and staffing, benefit from specialised facilities and teaching, enable students to work together and learn from each other;
- education-to-business link organisations, for example to obtain teaching and learning materials, speakers, mentors, workshop facilitators, or to coordinate work or community placements (for staff and students) and visits;
- agencies that network voluntary bodies, for example to extend community contacts, sources of information;
- business, social and community enterprises, for example to benefit from their business knowledge and skills, different perspectives, role models, access to community placements and projects;
- governors and parents, for example to provide support for enterprise
education activities, extend work and community contacts.
Examples of working with partners
These ways for working with partners include examples from a sample of enterprise pathfinder schools
Example 1
An atypical enterprise pathfinder project was the Changemakers Cluster group. This project consisted of a group of 12 schools from around the country — urban, multi-ethnic comprehensives, rural and special schools. It aimed to develop enterprise capability through social enterprise models, with the social enterprise 'changemakers' managing the project.
The social enterprise model used by changemakers consists of three elements. The first is 'Young people lead the action' where students design and manage community projects for the common good. In the second element, 'Adults support the learning', an adult facilitator supports the young people, monitoring the progress of the project and giving the students context. The third element, 'Business and the world of work' involves business representatives reviewing the learning gained by the young people against their requirements. This usually involved receiving feedback from employers and students doing a presentation to a relevant audience.
Each project is part of a 60-hour enterprise learning package consisting of: 15 hours' exploration, introduction, context, concepts; experience — a 30-hour community project designed and managed by the students; evaluation — a 15-hour unit, reviewing what was learnt from the experience and applying it to the world of work.
Employers helped to identify the enterprise skills students required and to produce resource materials to support enterprise learning. They also contributed to the development of an ASDAN Social Enterprise Award (carrying up to two credits) based on the assessment of five attributes. The first students completing the course attended a national award ceremony.
Example 2
The Bournville Cluster enterprise pathfinder project set up a five-day
Business Challenge Week, in which teams of students worked on a simulated
real-life business problem supported by 'enterprise mentors' and school
tutors. Business involvement also included a visit to company premises and the
opening and closing events held in external venues.
The 15 business partners included representatives from the private, public and
voluntary sectors, covering a wide range of industries such as manufacturing,
food and drink, retail, construction and transport. Each partner committed
itself to:
- work with an enterprise manager to create and scope a suitable challenge activity
- attend a session during the first day of the Challenge Week/s to meet the
student group due to work on their specific activity
host a visit by the same group for the purpose of putting the challenge activity in context and allowing students an opportunity to gather relevant information and conduct market research - provide access to relevant information and resources about the company
- attend the group presentation session on the final day
- provide constructive feedback to each group on the quality and content of its presentation.
Several employers saw their involvement as an opportunity to raise their profile in the local community and increase their links with schools. Some also wanted to use the challenge activities to communicate key messages to the students to encourage them to think about issues and to contribute their own ideas from a young person's perspective.
Example 3
A partnership of five secondary schools was brought together by Atkey
Solutions and Exergy Consulting Ltd to form an Enterprise Pathfinder project.
The feature of this project and its uniqueness was that all the schools were
trained in and shared a common culture in the use of Edward de Bono thinking
skills. This common language underpinned the project.
The use of 'six hats' thinking was used by Year 10 students to be
creative in coming up with ideas for a social or business enterprise activity
to be run in PSHE tutorial time over the year. The six hats gave students
creative thinking tools — in the areas of: information and acts;
feelings; risks and problems; logical benefits; decision making and new ideas
— to unlock their potential, increase motivation and achievement as well
as encourage team work. Staff working with the mentors required training in how
to use the tools and work with students in the classroom. Some of the ideas for
enterprise activity were more successful than others. A website set up by Atkey
Solutions was used by students to record and view their progress.
The partner schools have been unable to meet up because of the distances
involved but have communicated via email. The partnership network was seen as
being successful in getting schools to 'kick start' projects into
action, creating opportunities for pupils to link with other schools and share
evaluations of how things went in the different schools. Evaluations reveal
that school partnerships work best when schools meet together (at curriculum
level), want to collaborate and have a shared understanding of the task.
Published 28 September 2005
Last updated 21 January 2010
