What we do
Future First builds networks of former students who return to their old schools to widen current pupils’ horizons, encourage their aspirations and educate them about their future options.
Future First celebrates the diverse talents and successes of the school’s alumni community. We provide relatable role models for students so they can learn first-hand about different career paths as well as showcasing the school’s achievement to the wider community.
In our 2011 nationwide survey, Future First found that nearly half of the poorest young people do not know anyone in a job they would like to do. Future First’s challenge is to eradicate this within a generation.
Working closely with our partner schools, Future First researches and tracks the school’s communities to identify former students now in a range of different fulfilling careers, from artists to surgeons to athletes.
Once the alumni community is engaged, Future First brings these former students back into the classroom in facilitated sessions as part of a curriculum of in-school activities for Years 8 to 13. Future First works to tailor this curriculum to each individual school’s needs, ensuring we complement and enhance any existing Information, Advice and Guidance delivered by the school.
As part of the training school alumni receive before they enter the classroom, Future First uses professional journalists to interview each former student about their career path to date. These interviews then form the main content for bespoke interactive websites that Future First builds for each of its partner schools. These sites empower pupils to take control of their own career learning as they progress through the school, encouraging independent enquiry and research.
Future First also works with alumni to open up opportunities for pupils at local firms. To complement and further the experiences open to young people at Future First schools, we engage employers. Details of this work can be found here.
The structures Future First builds around a school are long term. We start by intensively engaging small numbers of alumni. As time passes, our networks and pools of social capital grow. We hope that the students we currently work with will grow to be alumni role models too.
The Future First model
The Future First model of in-school alumni events, supportive web platforms and access to work opportunities with employers was founded to answer the demands of young people in state schools. Based on focus groups with 15-17 year olds, and developed to address curriculum and Ofsted objectives, Future First’s work is constantly reviewed by students and teachers to ensure quality of service.
To see an example of the Future First in school curriculum click here.
Click on one of the case studies below to read more…
- William Ellis School
- Feltham Community College
William Ellis School
“I really enjoy going back into schools, meeting kids, offering advice where possible and feeling like I can help, in however small a way, young people make really important decisions” – Alumni Volunteer
William Ellis is an all-boys comprehensive school in the borough of Camden and is a member of the La Swap Sixth Form Consortium.
The school is a diverse one, drawing pupils from some of the poorest as well as some more affluent area s of central London. The proportion of students eligible for free school meals and those who speak English as an additional language at the school is well above average. William Ellis celebrates the diversity of pupils and is a specialist language college.
Future First has been working with William Ellis school since 2009 where we first piloted our work to raise aspirations and educate students about their future options. Since this time Future First has worked with approximately 1000 William Ellis students aged 14 to 18. Some of these students have now graduated from the school and will soon join the alumni community Future First has established so that they in turn can support current pupils.
In-school, Future First has provided a curriculum for over 1000 students in Years 9 to 13 involving over 50 William
Ellis alumni since 2009. Future First has engaged alumni with hugely varying skills and career paths, monitoring the educational qualifications of, and industries in which, alumni work in order to maintain and promote a diversity of role models for students. To date, Future First has run over 35 alumni events in school, focusing on promoting employability and transferable skills to pupils through relatable role models.
Future Firstprovides a great way for my pupils to learn about careers and skills. Former students can be inspirational yet approachable role models and their interaction with current students raises their aspirations about what they can do in the future” – Malcolm Rose, Deputy Head
Through William Ellis connections, Future First has created a range of work placements for William Ellis pupils, including over 20 days of work-shadowing opportunities with leading barristers.
In addition Future First has offered insight days to students at William Ellis through our network of corporate partners. These opportunities have included a facilitated work shadowing day at media law firm Finers Stephens Innocent for pupils in Year 10. For all of these students it was their first experience of work shadowing and all students said the day improved their confidence as well as giving them valuable experience. William Ellis pupils have also been able to access sessions and work placements at RBS, the Bank of England and Taylor Wessing thanks to Future First.
Following our successes at William Ellis School, Future First’s work has expanded now to serve six schools across the borough of Camden. In 2011- 12, two thirds of all secondary pupils in Camden will work with Future First and we will have over 250 school alumni volunteering at their old schools.
Feltham Community College
Future First was set up in 2008 to build networks of former students to advise, inform and inspire state sector students about their future options.
Serving a low-aspiration area on the outskirts of London, Feltham Community College is a large secondary school with a vibrant but challenging cohort of students, many of whom are still at the early stages of learning English. The school’s leadership team had identified a problem of under-achievement amongst key pupil groups and asked Future First to help address this.
Working in partnership with the Sutton Trust, Future First was introduced at Feltham Community College to raise pupils’ aspirations by celebrating the range of fulfilling and inspirational careers that former students have gone on to pursue. Our in-school alumni work was to be supported by a programme of out-of-school events that provided pupils with work-place experiences. Future First aimed to empower pupils to pursue their skills and interests and to motivate students to explore educational and career opportunities beyond the familiar area of Hounslow.
In our first year at the school, Future First built a network of 50 former students ranging from professional athletes to surgeons to oil explorers working abroad. We have engaged these alumni via a series of whole year interactive workshop assemblies for Years 9 to 12, working with over 400 students at the school. The curriculum developed at Feltham Community College focused on stretching students’ imaginations, helping them to explore the routes to which qualifications, skills and work experience could lead.
Future First also provided Feltham students them with tangible opportunities to further their personal development by engaging a variety of employers. Over the year, Feltham sixth formers attended Future First insight days at law firms Davies Arnold Cooper and Taylor Wessing and students with an interest in finance attended workshops at PwC, learning about HEADstart school-leaver roles at the firm. In addition, following an introduction from one of Feltham’s alumni community, Future First is working with 4C Associates to run an employability morning at the school.
At the end of our successful first year in Feltham, Future First started working with Feltham Community College’s neighbouring school, Rivers Academy (formerly Longford Community School). By developing a cluster in the area, Future First will further embed the alumni networks we have already built to become a long-standing and resilient part of the community, from which all local students can benefit.
