Latest articles from the Innovate My School community.

With teachers and school leaders across the UK enjoying a well-deserved break, we're taking a look at the academic year ahead. What can educators expect? How can they go about boosting their own wellbeing and student achievement alike?

We've gathered writers from a variety of backgrounds to tackle this Countdown to 2018/19. What's more, August's content is powered by Bett Global Series, whose new Bett Innovation Index gives a major selection of insights in itself...

A SMART approach to the world ahead

Q: What’s going to enable students to make smart choices as they prepare for their journeys after school - and aspire to become leaders of tomorrow? A: Great, creative schools that cultivate a culture of leadership and smart, outward-looking teachers who instil passion in all their students.

Championing 21st century skills

Over the first half of 2018, 21st century skills have come to the fore of the education sector debates. Identified as a series of learning dispositions that are crucial to the future success of our children, these skills include communication, collaboration, problem-solving, critical thinking, but also digital literacy and adaptability and flexibility.

Images credit: Vivacious Mel Photography.

Why your school needs Young Enterprise

Recent research from the Prince’s Trust has revealed some alarming statistics about the young people in Britain. Nearly a fifth of young people “think they will amount to nothing”, and 43% of young people don’t feel prepared to enter the workforce when they leave Secondary education. When the research moves to industries, it is evident that 67% of employers don’t feel like school-leavers have the necessary soft skills (communication, ...

Time to close the soft skills gap around the world

Despite sustained investment in global education systems over the years, there’s a persistent gap in our children’s learning. 21st century skills - such as problem-solving, critical thinking and appreciating cultural differences - are lacking among the university students of tomorrow.

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Don’t fail your students’ future

At the end of 2017, apprenticeship and skills minister Anne Milton released the Careers Strategy, outlining practical solutions in order to create a thriving careers system that is accessible to “everyone, whatever their age, to go as far as their talents will take them to have a rewarding career”.

5 reasons why you need to be teaching social media know-how

Let’s go back a decade. If you found yourself in the midst of a job search after finishing school in the mid-2000s, CVs were sent by post, trips to nearest job boards and job centres were a weekly tradition, and newspaper cuttings of possible jobs were kept on the sideboard as a reminder.

Images courtesy of interviewee. // Originally published on 5th March 2018.

Changing the future through careers education [interview]

Stephen Logan is both a school leader and an expert on careers education (as director of National Careers Week), so we absolutely had to rendezvous with the Yorkshire-based educator to pick his brain...

The virtues vital for student futures

Whether driven by personal belief, a sense of social justice, or by a maniacal headteacher who espouses innovation and novelty at every turn, we are all, as educators, bound by one immutable fact: children will learn something from us which will last through their lives.

Images courtesy of author // Pupils at Highfield School enjoy the numerous benefits of group singing.

The problem with “soft skills”

We are poised on the brink of a new industrial revolution. In December 2017, McKinsey Global Institute produced a detailed report entitled ‘Jobs lost, jobs gained: workforce transitions in a time of automation’, in which they presented a proposition that by 2030 robots could have replaced 800 million jobs. They look at the impact of this on the labour market - what jobs will be likely to be automated, by AI or robots, ...

5 essential insights into student futures

How best to prepare students for the shrouded world ahead of them? Here, we present a few of the insights put forward in the Innovate My School Guide 2017/18...

Image credit: Wikimedia Commons // Job interview.

A worldplace of opportunities

I write as we head towards the business end of yet another academic year, it is somewhat scary when the realisation hits that I am also coming to end of my first two years as an international educator. With this also comes the clarity that the students whom I have been responsible for teaching over the last cycle are now also coming to the end of their courses, and the ...

7 ways to perfect careers activities

Careers guidance plays a huge role in supporting students’ aspirations, identifying their strengths, and creating their perfect futures. So how do you ensure that young people are given the best chances of success for life after school?

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