February 2023

Inspiring Choices Newsletter

After some team restructuring in 2022, we are beyond excited to have started 2023 with a complete team! We wanted to take some time to share what we've been up to and a few exciting things we have coming up!

On Track

We had a fantastic trip to Askham Bryan College last week when 15 care experienced young people and staff from the virtual schools spent a day in the wildlife park and got a really good look around the College campus. We took part in a Crested gecko demonstration and, as always, the feeding of the meerkats was a favourite.
 

Several of the young people are seriously considering progressing on to a course at ABC once they finish GCSEs so it was really helpful to be able to look around the agricultural, horticultural and Motor Sports curriculum areas and talk to a students admission officer.

Groundwork

On Tuesday 17^th January Inspiring Choices, Groundwork and Selby High staff gathered to celebrate 5 Year 10 Selby High students for completing their Level 1 Horticulture qualification through a 6 week project with Groundwork.  The event was held at Communitea Café in Selby and we were joined by some parents of the students and the Deputy Mayor of Selby and his wife.

Certificates were presented to the students by Steve Tuck, Groundwork.

The students talked about how much they had enjoyed their experience on the Groundwork project and that they didn’t want it to end. It was an opportunity to speak to the parents, who had seen their son’s confidence grow and were pleased for them to have the opportunity.

On Tuesday 21^st February, Askham Bryan College welcomed the first Year 10 Groundworks cohort of the year for a fantastically enjoyable campus visit. The Selby High students enjoyed a hands-on (and muddy!) horticulture workshop led by staff of the college, as well as a tour of both the campus and wildlife park, featuring cows, a robotic milking machine, meerkats, and even a lemur or two. After a hearty lunch, the students had the opportunity to have their own say on the Groundworks programme, as well as learn a little more about the range of further education options available after secondary school.

The visit, funded and organised by Inspiring Choices, marks the end a hugely successful 6-week programme, which the students enjoyed immensely. As one student put it, “[Groundwork] made us believe in ourselves”.

We hope the programme will have a similar impact for the next group at Selby, who start this week, as well as students at York High and on the coast who will be accessing the programme in the coming months.
         

HeppFest

Last week, Inspiring Choices presented two sessions at HeppFest, a weeklong programme of online sessions aiming to inspire, motivate and increase the confidence of students on their journey to Higher Education. HeppFest is organised by Hepp (Higher Education Progression Partnership), and their sister organisation HeppSY, the Uni Connect Programme for South Yorkshire and Northeast Derbyshire, based at Sheffield Hallam University.  HeppFest runs yearly and regularly reaches thousands of young people, with all sessions free to attend and available online afterwards.

The two sessions delivered by Inspiring Choices concerned Post-16 options, an exploration of different qualifications and education routes available to learners after their GCSE’s, and Preparing for Student Life, a look at the experience of Higher Education including accommodation, budgeting, and what students can get up to outside of the classroom. For more information, and access to the recordings (when released), please visit HeppFest | HeppHUB

Social Media

Throughout December and January we ran a social media campaign covering the UCAS process, from the basics to top tips. All of posts were on our platforms and also collectively as a guide here. 
         

National Apprenticeship Week 
NAW was 6th-12th February, and put out plenty of information across our platforms, including a page for apprenticeship resources on our website! 
           

Upcoming Campaign
In March we are going to run a career information social media campaign. This will be full of guidance, fun quizzes, interesting information and more! If you have any resources you think we should add, let us know!

Keep an eye out on our socials for more great content!

New Merch!

As you may know, we rebranded in 2022, to become 'Inspiring Choices'! We took this opportunity to order plenty of new merch that we are very excited about! 

Have a careers or college fair coming up?

We would love to attend (and bring all our new merch)! Please email Annie at d.smith4@yorksj.ac.uk to see if we are able to attend your fair!