Working with Schools and Colleges

In fact, the sooner students start thinking about what they want to do and how to get there the better.

Transform Society has developed a range of services tailored specifically to support school and college students in understanding employability, particularly in public service, and developing the skills they need to land a job and make an – whether that’s through direct employment or by joining a graduate scheme.

We have worked with heads of sixth forms and colleges and their careers leaders to introduce students and staff to the breadth of opportunities out there and to deliver a suite of student resources, including online materials, and virtual and in-person events to build awareness of career opportunities and pathways, both within public-service and beyond.

And, following the success of the at universities, we have developed a version specifically for school, sixth form and college students to help them innovate and understand how they can deliver practical change in their local communities.

Skills:

We focus on helping students to identify and develop the transferable skills they will need to get jobs and make a difference through reflection and discussion, practical workshops, real world challenges and gamification/situational judgment tests.

  • Communication
  • Leadership
  • Teamwork
  • Critical thinking and problem-solving
  • Reflection and self-awareness

Knowledge:

We provide an up-to-date look into the school-leaver and graduate job market and help students understand what to expect in recruitment and selection processes so that they can prepare and shine. Our most popular sessions include:

  • What is the Public Sector?
  • The Graduate Marketplace
  • What is an Assessment Centre?
  • The Future of Work
  • Introduction to Transferable Skills
  • AI in Selection

Experiences:

We run in-person and virtual events that give students an insight into the kinds of challenges they may face and encourage the development of skills and behaviours that will help them to be effective.

  • Community Challenges
  • Mock Assessment Centres
  • PSHE curriculum workshops
  • Professional skills – office, email and online meeting behaviours, and dos and don’ts of the workplace
  • Values and culture workshop
  • Networking and LinkedIn (where students work on, or create their LinkedIn profile)
  • Personal brand

Transform Society also provides support for schools in delivering CPD for teachers and leaders, both to build awareness of public-service opportunities for their students and to embed employability and other relevant skills into the curriculum through PHSE and extra-curricular activities.

Securing a place on a graduate scheme is more competitive now than at any time in the last 25 years. We help staff members understand how challenging the world of graduate recruitment and employment has become and what they can do and the steps their students can take now to best improve their chances.

“James planned and led an absolutely brilliant Transform Society Challenge for the entirety of our Lower Sixth. Our students really appreciated the very useful graduate recruitment context that James provided and also had their eyes opened to a complex, urgent social problem. It is very rare to be able to have so many ‘wins’ in a single day! The students were brilliantly engaged – thanks to James – and presented some novel, well-researched ideas. We would absolutely recommend these “Challenges” to any school wanting to offer students a thought-provoking experience with a splash of careers-focus and employability skills mixed in. All had a very good day and the feedback from students and their parents has been great.”

Michael Herring
Assistant Head of Upper School and Teacher of History

What’s on offer

Transform Society provides a range of sessions for schools and colleges to help them prepare their students for the challenges and opportunities facing them as they either launch their careers or head off to university. These include a detailed review of the state of the graduate jobs market and a specially tailored version of the Transform Society Challenge in which students work on real-life social issues and collaborate to develop solutions while developing some of the core skills for public service. We also offer consultancy services to schools and colleges to help students understand the realities of the workplace and the opportunities in public service at both the local and national level.

Transform Society also provides support for schools in delivering CPD for teachers and leaders, both to build awareness of public-service opportunities for their students and to embed employability and other relevant skills into the curriculum through PHSE and extra-curricular activities. We help staff members to understand how the world of graduate recruitment is changing and how their responsibilities for preparing students for the world are evolving.

“James has been a huge help as we evolved our careers and employability offer to the boys, and his annual talk on the Graduate Market is a highlight of the calendar”

School Head of Careers

“It’s time to look beyond our academic and co-curricular life and the university places we are successful in helping our pupils to achieve. We must consider how we prepare our students for their working lives, and how we can most effectively instil the ethos of making the most of a privileged educational background, so that they become agents for positive social change.”

School Director of Teaching and Learning

To find out more contact

James Darley

info@transformsociety.org

of everyone working in the UK works in the public sector

Academics are a given, it’s your level of proficiency in key skills that matters

Lifelong employability is all about having the right blend of transferable skills,
knowledge and experience

of graduate applications are rejected