Leading Partnerships: Teachers and Employers

Inspired Approaches to Curriculum for Excellence

Through engaging Scotland's employers and entrepreneurs the education of our young people is enhanced – setting learning in a real context and making it more relevant to the world beyond school. Partnerships with employers provide a rich exciting approach to learning and teaching – it provides the environment and pedagogy that supports how young people learn and ensures that all learning strategies embrace the real world.

But the development of partnerships with employers is complex: it requires distinct approaches and skills and essentially it's about leadership: taking control and managed risks.

Determined to Succeed has, over the last 3 years built a considerable body of evidence around the impact of partnership working. Teachers from all sectors and disciplines have found that contextualising their learning motivates and enthuses young people and supports both achievement and attainment outcomes.

Importantly, employers, even in the current economic climate, can benefit immensely from their work with teachers and schools.

This session reflects on this work, using a number of case studies and the results of recent evaluation studies.

Participants will be able to reflect on the opportunities and benefits of this approach within Curriculum for Excellence.

Jean MacMillan is a Senior Adviser in the Scottish Government working for Determined to Succeed and the More Choices, More Chances strategy within the Enterprise and Employability Division.

Jean is a seconded Depute Headteacher and before that has taught in a number of schools in the West of Scotland. For the last 4 years Jean has been working with Local Authorities to deliver Determined to Succeed and with the More Choices, More Chances Team to develop a Continuous Improvement Strategy.

In addition Jean is working with Learning and Teaching Scotland to develop an exciting resource for young people about entrepreneurialism based on the experience of Scottish entrepreneurs as well as a resource supporting Partnership with Employers for teachers and employers.