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?

Preparing students for the future is a hot topic right now, and with good reason. According to the World Economic Forum, 65% of children starting school today will go on to do jobs that don’t exist yet. For those of us who work in education, this presents a rather troubling dilemma: if we don’t know half of what they’ll be doing, what are we supposed to teach them?

What comes to mind when I say Nike, Apple, Google, Amazon, Kanye West, Beyoncé? Each of these have a reputation that surrounds their “brand”. Something that is expressed through their art, their product, their services. The brand that makes us love them or loathe them.

As the debate over single-sex education continues, Karen Raven, headmistress at Chislehurst School for Girls in Bromley, South London, cites the importance she believes all girls’ education plays in preparing young women for 21st century Britain, as well as in closing the careers gap persisting between men and women…

Not so long ago, geeks were often considered outcasts - both in schools and in society at large. Although they bonded with other like-minded people, geeks didn’t typically mingle in mainstream culture.

When it comes to stress, anxiety and worries, our natural instinct is to protect children from them; why? It’s a natural process we need to go through, and an important life skill we need to be able to manage. If we don’t fail, we don’t learn. Part of failing is feeling sad; part of feeling sad is knowing how we can move on and be positive again. It’s important for children to experience a healthy amount of stress and anxiety. If they don’t experience it, how will they learn to manage it?

With the warmer weather approaching - and the prospect of enjoying the great outdoors becoming more of a reality - schools need to be helping children prepare for the season ahead. Thankfully, Boots are once again bringing their Soltan Sun Ready Schools programme to UK classrooms - minimising workload and budget concerns, while maximising pupil health. This year, the leading pharmacy chain are even going so far as help fund school trips!

Supported by Change.Org, school literacy project Change It invites the next generation to take action on real issues that matter to them, by writing and directing their own campaign video in the classroom. Teacher Dan Burden recently completed the project with his Year 6 class, in support of the #homesnotspikes petition. He explains the impact the project had on his pupils:

Brockhill Park Performing Arts College is a large Secondary school sat up above the Cinque Port of Hythe, overlooking the English Channel. Every morning Brockhill students arrive at school dressed smartly in blazers and gather in friendship groups, some in the playground, others in the canteen - but that is where the similarities with other schools end.

As Sir Tim Berners-Lee noted, “The original idea of the web was that it should be a collaborative space where you can communicate through sharing information.” The internet is a place designed for humans to connect. Those who know me (Nicole Ponsford) know that collaboration and celebration are my jam. Over the last decade, I’ve been fortunate to be part of and create a range of online communities - from my new startup, The Gender Equality Charter (GEC), my new #Edtech50-winning WomenEdTechers (the digital side to WomenEd), to those first few curriculum-based blogs I did as an NQT. I have learnt a few things along the journey, but there is one thing that stands out.