Leicestershire Cares Launches New Education Strategy Aligned with Modern Work Experience
Leicestershire Cares is proud to announce the launch of its new Education Strategy, marking an exciting new chapter in our commitment to supporting young people across Leicester and Leicestershire.
For more than 20 years, Leicestershire Cares has worked in partnership with schools, colleges, businesses and volunteers to deliver high-quality employability and careers activities. Through mock interviews, careers events and volunteer-led workshops, thousands of young people have developed the confidence, skills and aspirations needed to prepare for the world of work.
The new strategy builds on this strong foundation while aligning the charity’s work with the national Modern Work Experience model and the evolving direction of careers education set out by the Department for Education.
Modern Work Experience moves beyond traditional one-off careers activities and focuses on providing young people with meaningful, progressive employer engagement throughout their school journey. The aim is to help students:
- discover a wide range of careers and industries,
- explore pathways and workplace environments in greater depth,
- and develop the skills, confidence and understanding needed for future employment.
Leicestershire Cares’ new programme has been designed around these principles, offering schools a structured and flexible approach to employer engagement that supports students from Key Stage 3 through to Key Stage 4.
Alongside the charity’s established mock interview programme, schools and business partners will now be able to access a broader range of activities, including:
- Career Carousel events
- Sector Spotlight sessions
- Employer-led project challenges
- Employability and skills workshops
- CV building sessions
Each activity has been designed to provide clear learning outcomes and meaningful interaction between young people and employers.
The new strategy has been developed to create benefits for all partners involved.
For schools, it provides a low-burden, high-impact way to strengthen careers provision and align with current national expectations around modern work experience.
For businesses, it offers flexible opportunities for employee volunteering, community engagement and social impact, while helping to inspire and develop the future workforce.
For young people, it creates earlier and more sustained access to employers, helping them broaden their aspirations, understand the workplace and build essential employability skills.
Bella Emmerson, Education Development Officer at Leicestershire Cares, said:
This strategy is an exciting step forward for Leicestershire Cares. We are building on decades of successful volunteer-led employability work and aligning ourselves with the future of careers education. Our aim is simple, we want to connect business and education in ways that create meaningful opportunities for young people and help them realise their potential.
Leicestershire Cares has already started working with schools and businesses to roll out the new programme across Leicester and Leicestershire. The charity is inviting both schools interested in strengthening their careers provision and businesses looking to support young people through volunteering and employer engagement to get involved.
By bringing together education and industry, Leicestershire Cares hopes to help build a more confident, skilled and aspirational generation of young people while contributing to the long-term economic growth of the region.
For more information about the new Education Strategy and Modern Work Experience programme, or to discuss partnership opportunities, please contact Bella at Bella@leicestershirecares.co.uk.