2030 vision

for the Cambridge sub-region

 

 

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Economics and technology
Housing 2030
Education and skills
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RSA Cambridge Group

Meeting at ideaSpace: 13 July 2011

How can we encourage some of Cambridge's fine minds into schools to improve literacy and numeracy? (If indeed we feel these are the most important things to improve. Employers and universities are telling us that it is the other softer and higher order skills that are more important and are in need of development).

  • Adaptability is important. What are employability skills? What do good employees look like?
  • One proven model (as piloted by Sawtry and Microsoft) relates to providing young people with workplace experiences that open their eyes to new possibilities, and which show what work is like now (as opposed to the often grey and uninformed view offered by many in schools).
  • The idea is to show what the world of work can offer in the 21st century. It's far less about what you wear and what you know, and more about flexibility, teamwork, adaptability and commitment.
  • As a region, we're not short of workplaces with a wow factor. And the RSA is surely well placed to enable visits to most if not all of these.
  • Can the regional RSA group use its contacts and influence to initiate visits for schools into some of the area's most exciting workplaces?
  • In terms of resources and reach, this would only really work if the groundwork were done by an organisation like the Chamber, BusinessLink or the like.
  • There could be some possibilities for Fellows to get involved with mentoring, but that would be a bureaucratically intensive thing to set up, and has an impact that is limited in scope. We need to identify ways of making as great an impact for as many students as we can.
  • There could also be the possibility for the development of a challenge. An event based on The Apprentice, or some other teamwork activity, perhaps to mirror the international robotics competition in which Hills Road students have tended to excel.
  • Sitting behind this action oriented plan is a set of objectives to (a) enhance the quality of careers awareness amongst young people in the region, (b) to challenge the prevailing vocational/academic divide by focusing on employability skills for all (which tend to coincide with the sort of higher order skills (21st Century skills) required by universities too), and (c) to provide a way for schools to improve their young enterprise and employer links work.

     

    See also notes by Ben Gibbs on 21st century skills
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