Working with Schools and Colleges
We recognise that you don’t have be a graduate to want to help improve society and that you don’t need to be at university to be thinking about how to get into public service and make a difference. That’s why, building on our success in working with university partners, we are extending our offer upstream to support schools and colleges – both state and privately funded. We want students at all schools to have a better understanding of what public service is, how it supports society and impacts people’s lives, and the kinds of career that are open to students from any background who want to make a difference.
Transform Society is now working with heads of sixth forms and colleges and their careers leaders to introduce students and staff to the breadth of opportunities within public service. We are also developing a suite of student resources as well as an in-person and virtual offer to build awareness and understanding of public service careers.
And, following the success of the Transform Society Challenge at universities, we are developing a version specifically for sixth-form and college students to help them innovate and understand how they can deliver practical change in their local communities.
“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
Public service employers recruit more graduates than any other sector in the UK
Critical services delivered by charities, social enterprises and private companies
Nearly 18% of everyone working in the UK works in public sector
The diversity of roles in public service is mind boggling
5.5m people work in UK public sector