Agenda item

The Chairman and Members welcomed Mr Brading to the meeting and thanked him for the written response to the questions that had been forwarded to him in preparation for the meeting.

1.             Interview with Andy Brading, AB Consulting

(Item 1)

The Chairman and Members welcomed Mr Brading to the meeting and thanked him for the written response to the questions that had been forwarded to him in preparation for the meeting.

Mr Brading gave a brief introduction on his working background that lead up to him in his role in AB Consulting.

Q – When do you introduce the world of work to young people?

A – A lot of schools were unable to take on more ‘support’ especially those schools within high deprivation.  In his opinion the teaching staff felt beleaguered by the number of initiatives and the different elements they need to incorporate into their schemes of work.  He felt that in those schools there was, rightly, a focus on numeracy and literacy.    He explained that in his role he was trying to help teaching staff understand that enterprise was about good teaching.

Q - Were the schools that you were in supporting the students that were very good, and left the other children?

A – There was an element of that.  In most schools the children were streamed or set and often those viewed as the least engaged were involved in other interventions such as the Increased Flexibility programme. I was more than happy to work with those students.

Q - Did you find evidence that business people felt that young people had poor numeracy and literacy when they came to them for a job?

A – Mr Brading said that they did and in particular commented on the importance of the young people’s spelling and basic grammar when it came to job applications.  He then referred to the Wolf report agreeing with the importance that the report attaches to raising the level of reading, writing and use of number. He felt that this was an important element to focus on in addition to the wider employability skills.

Q - Were the schools listening to you?

A – As a rule, the schools were already aware of the need to focus on Maths & English; it was my task to talk about the wider skills base and raise awareness of that agenda.

Q – If you took 6 months off to give some thought to what you were doing in your role and were then given a pot of money to improve things what would you do?

A – Mr Brading said that it did come down to funding.  He felt that there was a disconnection between education and work.  He said that until you engage employers properly, making sure that they viewed getting involved with schools was worthwhile and meaningful, and also provided an easily accessible process for schools to engage, it would not happen.  He considered that this would need to be brokered well to become useful.  The brokering should be managed for the employers and schools to make it effective.  He did not feel that businesses would seek reimbursement for their time but if available would be likely to respond to a tax break or chargeable expense.  The Chairman advised that in his electoral area there would be an Enterprise Zone, which would be doing something similar.

Mr Brading said that he was working in Gravesham at present to establish a project relating to commercial viability of engagement of businesses, the majority of which are SME.  This might be, for example, through positive PR with the students’ and parents in the area gives the businesses a commercial edge.

 The Chairman suggested that a way to engage could be for the business to go to the school and say that over the next 10 years they would need 10 electricians and set up an experiment giving the students the opportunity to have work experience and see who would be interested and suitable in taking this further.  This would not just be for trades but for all types of occupations.

Q – With apprenticeships are SME being offered?

A - I am not involved in apprenticeships.  From the professionals and parental point of view accessing apprenticeships was difficult.  There were not a lot of paid traineeships and there was a lot of competition for each placement.

A Member mentioned that in the past companies use to pick those coming out of university and what had just been suggested was on the same lines but on a smaller scale and that he could see this working. 

Mr Brading said that, as an example of this his nephew did work experience for Jaguar who used work experience as a filter, screening young people who had potential to do their apprenticeship.  He was now 25 years old and had developed a successful career, working for Jaguar in Dubai as a technical trainer.

Q - What are your views on the Wolf report recommendations?

A – Mr Brading felt that it was a well considered and researched document and broadly accurate.  However it should be remembered that the review dealt specifically with vocational education.  There were wider issues.  The report did not deal with enterprise learning and work related learning.  Work related Learning was largely dismissed and was equated with work experience which is inaccurate.

Q – What is Enterprise learning?

A - Mr Brading explained that Enterprise learning was in 3 strands:-

• Enterprise capability – which was about “how” eg soft skills communicating, personal skills.
• Economic and Business Understanding – which is about establishing an understanding of how business and the broader economy work
• Financial capability

Work related learning is more about the “what”, i.e. delivering learning in the context of work as a means of engaging with young people.  He referred to the QCDA framework for Work-related Learning

Mr Brading referred to the Ofsted report in June 2011, which he said highlighted the economic and business understanding aspect of enterprise education.  He drew the distinction between Enterprise and Entrepreneurship making the point that the enterprise agenda was originally about engaging teaching and helping young people develop appropriate employability skills in the course of their learning rather than an overt focus on business. 

Q - Was there a mismatch of what employers needed and young people’s qualifications?

A – Mr Brading felt that the situation in Kent is likely to mirror the national picture in relation to general employability skills which he felt are lacking as evidenced by the numerous reports and surveys about employers’ views.  There was a need for young people to have soft skills such as being able to communicate and having an understanding of the working world.  It was about preparing them for life.

Q - How effective is KCC?  Are we achieving anything?  What does KCC need to do for the future? 

A – Mr Brading said that Kent is a large and diverse county.  Enterprise learning and apprenticeships would need to be different in each area in Kent to reflect those local differences.  Each area should have its own local focus.  He added that it was important for KCC to be able to engage with the small business community and that it had seemed difficult for KCC to do that effectively.  He said that he had worked with Emma Jenkins on the extended services agenda which is an example of a part of KCC trying hard to work well with smaller businesses and providers who find the system difficult to access.  Mr Brading referred to the commissioning process for framework agreements.  As an example he said that he had won a contract but it took 12 ‘person’ days to prepare the tender document which had ended up providing no work to tender for.  There had recently been an even larger contract for early intervention but he did not take it up as the process for the tender was far too long and inaccessible and this put him off.

The Chairman indicated that this was an issue that KCC could identify.

Q - If they cannot access the frameworks what are we doing?  We need joined up thinking.

A – The process needs to be managed.  KCC wouldn’t be expected to quality assure providers but could provide a process for checking elements such as liability insurance, child protection, health & safety issues etc.  Businesses and providers would be responsible for evidencing the quality of their programmes and the outcomes of their activities. The outcomes need to be clear to both the schools and the businesses. Schools could then access a range of providers and businesses.

Q – How early do you think young people should be introduced to enterprise skills?

A – Mr Brading felt that primary school age was the right time to introduce enterprise skills when they were doing a range of cross-curricular activity and were often very enterprising.  He felt that at KS3, often the focus became immediately subject-based which is when those skills were lost.  Some schools had adopted a project based learning approach at KS3 which provided a means of continuing the development of enterprise skills and that in KS4 this became applied to the context of work. He felt that if at Yr7 they were allowed to develop their enterprise skills by the time they reached GCSE level they would be more confident, enterprising, independent and more able to identify their own skills and what they were good at.

Q - You feel that their ambitions were killed at secondary school?

A – GCSEs are subject headed and the focus is on ‘passing’ those subjects with a C grade or above. The curriculum is available to develop vocational options and to engage students at KS4 more fully in their learning.

Q - Are there any other issues that you feel that we have not covered?

A – Engage Kent’s small businesses and providers with schools and make the process more accessible.  Take advantage of the wealth of knowledge and skills that the businesses have.  The Chairman asked Mr Brading to expand on this aspect by following up with Mr G Romagnuolo after the meeting

The Committee thanked Mr Brading for attending the meeting.