Schools & Colleges - Working Options

Transform the life chances of your students

Sign up to our 5-step Career Pathways Programme and give your students access to inspiring industry insight, online learning, skills development and work experience.

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Partner with us

Free programme for schools and colleges

We provide your students with self-directed online learning; employability and skills masterclasses; talks from industry volunteers; mentoring; business challenge sessions; and access to work experience, internships and entry-level jobs.

Kick off with an insight from industry session for your students either online or face-face, sign students up for a virtual Masterclass providing them with a deep dive into an industry or employer or book our active learning employability skills workshops facilitated by industry volunteers who bring them to life with real-world examples. Topics include problem-solving, teamwork, interviews and presentation skills.

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Access free resources on our Student Zone to support your teaching and to provide students with self-directed online learning. Much of our online content has been provided by senior business leaders and includes free lesson plans for educators.

Visit Student Zone

Access diversity and inclusion training and take part in business created challenges to help students apply their skills to the world of work.

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Gain access to work experience, internships, apprenticeships and entry level jobs. Time spent in a workplace really helps students to better understand the world of work. We encourage all our industry partners to consider the opportunities they can offer students from our partner schools and colleges.

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Support to transition from education to work, guidance on career options and support into first role.

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Our 5-step Career Pathways Programme

STEP 1: Understanding your options and upping your skills
STEP 2: Knowledge Bank
STEP 3: Building leadership and team skills and applying them to work
STEP 4: Options and opportunities post education
STEP 5: Access to mentors (18+ years)

What we do

We help young people fulfil their potential

Working Options in Education helps young people fulfil their potential by developing employability and life skills. Our Career Pathways Programme, delivered with schools and colleges in England and Wales, supports young people facing additional challenges caused by the pandemic.

The programme includes self-directed online learning; employability and skills masterclasses; talks from industry volunteers; mentoring; business challenges; and access to opportunities in partner companies.

Since 2010, we have worked to transform the life chances of young people (14-19), by helping them take early control of their education or career journey, when the choices they make will shape their future.

20,000+

young people engaged in schools, colleges and online
300+

free insights from industry sessions and skills workshops delivered
88%

students participating in our sessions feel more confident about their future.
400+

volunteers providing insights from industry
600+

students invited to high profile industry events

Success stories

Excellent resources

We LOVE all the information that you have compiled in the one place in your Student Zone for the Life after lockdown toolkit. We’ll be adding this on to our upcoming e-shot that goes out to students and parents.

Sixth Form Tutor
Fantastic session

“The Working Options event was FANTASTIC. The best thing that has happened to Business & Finance this year.”

Sixth Form Tutor
Insightful and positive

” The talk yesterday was fantastic. Both speakers were very insightful and knowledgeable and I think a lot of our students really took away some positive messages from their engagement! Thank you for your help in making this happen; it was great for the students to be able to engage in such a way.”

Sixth Form Tutor
Engaging online content

“The website resources [in your Student Zone] are great and students used many aspects during their post 18 choices day last week.

Sixth Form Tutor
Access to real world experiences

“Real life stories are always more powerful than theoretical stuff. It’s always rewarding when students can see the relevance of their work being demonstrated.”

Sixth Form Tutor
Valuable industry insight

“The opportunity for our students to get exposure to such industry experts was extremely valuable. They inspire our students to be proactive in both creating and taking opportuities to develop their employability skills”

Sixth Form Tutor
Building positivity

“I now have a more positive outlook on college and my future. I’ll take every opportunity that comes my way.”

Sixth Form Student

Our Impact

How we help

Improving employability

We’ve developed our employability and life skills programme to offer young people multiple interactions with employers,because we know there is a direct correlation to improved academic attainment and future employability. The widening opportunity gap in employment prospects means that we particularly focus on engaging disadvantaged young people.
Building confidence

We want young people to feel inspired, informed and have the skills they need for their future. Young people consistently tell us that participating in our employability and life skills programme has a positive impact on their self-esteem and confidence.
Supporting education

Our employability and life skills programme supports schools and colleges to deliver many of the employer engagement elements of the ‘Gatsby Benchmarks’ for their students.
Connecting industry

We act as a link between students and employers. We’ve developed strong links with companies in multiple industry sectors.

How to get your school or college involved

Check out what we can offer your students
Email Claire McMaster claire.mcmaster@workingoptions.org.uk or use the form below.
We’ll be in touch to get things rolling.

Transform the life chances of your students

Partner with us

Free programme for schools and colleges

Our 5-step Career Pathways Programme

What we do

We help young people fulfil their potential

Success stories

Excellent resources

Fantastic session

Insightful and positive

Engaging online content

Access to real world experiences

Valuable industry insight

Building positivity

How we help

How to get your school or college involved

Find us on social media

Get in touch

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