Education Works wraps up activity for another successful academic year!

Written by Zaina Ali, Senior Project Manager – Education Works

And what a year it’s been! The Education Team has worked hard to support over 3000 beneficiaries through 189 activities. We are looking back at some of the opportunities we have been able to give to young people in east London over the last few months:

Citi Global Community Day
As part of Citi’s “Global Community Day” campaign this June, Citi Volunteers joined ELBA to host workshops for secondary and college students from the east London community, focused on supporting young people to build skills, confidence, and perspectives useful to their education and future careers.

The Education Team at ELBA were heavily involved with this initiative, planning and facilitating the workshops for seven of our school partners. The volunteer engagement was greatly appreciated, with Citi Volunteers from different career stages and teams taking part, networking and working with the students, and sharing insights into their roles and career journeys.

Throughout the month, over 260 students took part in the workshops. They told us that taking part provided an opportunity to learn how to speak to an audience, gain insights into career paths, take time for self-reflection, and build confidence, creativity, motivation, and new skills. ‘The whole day was a thrilling and engaging day and I am grateful for gaining this new knowledge about education leading to the world of work’.

Thank you so much to Citi for the continued support!

Red Lion Chambers Mentoring Programme and Mock Trial
On the 2nd July, 14 aspiring law students across east London universities commenced the end of this year’s Mentoring Programme in partnership with Red Lion Chambers by participating in a Mock Trial, held at the Central Criminal Court, more infamously known as the Old Bailey! For the last 5 months, students have been developing their advocacy skills and learning about the legal profession from practising barristers at Red Lion Chambers. In addition to this, students have had the opportunity to develop and practise their courtroom skills in preparation for the Mock Trial, which had attendance of 11 mentees and mentors who all played an important role during the trial.

“It was such a practical and real-work-experience in preparing for a trial at the Old Bailey. A lot of what I learnt, we have not yet done it at University at the same level. To therefore gain this invaluable practical experience from Paul and Gillian has given me an edge above my classmates that have not yet had such an opportunity. Plus, I learnt so much about the preparation that a barrister has to do in order to prepare for a trial.”

ELBA has collaborated with Red Lion Chambers for 4 years to run the Mentoring Programme, with its core aim to offer guidance and support to east London students who are studying a law-focused degree and come from underrepresented backgrounds in the legal profession. Students came from universities including Queen Mary University of London, University of East London, London Metropolitan University and Republic University.

“Overall, while the mentorship provided valuable skills and opportunities, it also helped me identify specific areas for improvement, which is essential for continuous development and success.”

A huge congratulations to the students completing the programme and the mock trial and thank you to Red Lion Chambers barristers for offering this fantastic experience!

A&M Work Experience
Three young people from some of ELBA’s education partners and through the Parity Project took part in a two week work experience programme with the A&M Transaction Advisory Group (TAG) UK team. They were able to gain a deeper understanding of how the department operates, gained valuable skills required to work in this industry, and became more confident in their career pathway. One of the young people said:

“The programme really thrust us into the deep end in the best way possible, with the first week spent going through rigorous excel training and learning the essential skills required to do Financial Due Diligence: including how a company’s earnings are presented and how Financial Due Diligence is a process that reviews those earnings, amongst other things.”

During their second week, they were able to shadow different people within the firm, and were often exposed to real projects:

“I personally was able to familiarise myself with real project experience and participate as part of the A&M TAG team. I felt this was amazing for my own personal and professional development.”

This was a very successful programme, with two of the young people gaining full time employment at A&M which is testament to the great engagement of the young people and the thoroughness of the placement itself. A massive thank you to the team at A&M who helped make this program.

UBS and The Bridge Academy – Employability Days
As part of The Bridge Academy careers and progression programme, UBS and ELBA facilitated 2 Employability Day events for Year 8 and Year 12 students. Year 8 students had an opportunity to speed-network with volunteers from all areas of UBS, before putting into practice their teamwork skills by creating a fully sustainable office environment. The day culminated in all 180 students sharing their innovative ideas in the public speaking task. With the event held at UBS’s London office – what a great introduction to the world of work.

The Year 12 students took part in a jam-packed day of activities, rotating between each workshop. This included sessions such as; personal branding, mock assessment centre preparation, networking, routes to recruitment and also wellbeing at work. For the students, this highly interactive day helped to motivate them to think about their plans for the future. And for the 140 UBS volunteers who helped on the day, it highlighted the importance of volunteering to inspire young people as they begin their career journeys.

Rowe Price – Coding Club and Money Confident Kids
This year we partnered up with T.Rowe Price to deliver two core workshops in collaboration with Eden Girls School, based in Waltham Forest. The first workshop, Money Confident Kids, is targeted at young people to give them the tools and information they need to become experts at saving, spending and investing. This year, the content was taught by the teachers in schools and the students were then brought to T.Rowe Price’s office in St Paul’s to complete the final two lessons. These sessions were run by their amazing group of volunteers, some of whom also supported us last year!

The second workshop is T.Rowe Price’s first ever pilot programme of Coding Club. This was brought about as the school pointed out that whilst coding is part of the STEM curriculum, they do not have the resources or capacity to teach it to the students. T.Rowe Price then stepped in and planned out six fortnightly sessions which they delivered across the course of three months. The students, with the support of professional engineers, worked on building a car which was programmed via coding. At the end of the workshop, they then tested out their cars to see if the cars successfully followed the coding patterns. Next year, these students will go on to become coding ambassadors for the younger years. Not only that, they have developed confidence and a passion for coding. Mr Swati, Lead Teacher of Computer Science, said ‘Had it not been for the volunteers, this would not have been possible’.

A massive thank you to T.Rowe Price for helping us to facilitate some incredible programmes for Eden Girls School and for contributing to education in STEM.

We could not have achieved all of this and more without our volunteers who have made such an incredible and diverse impact on young people in east London! If you are interested in volunteering for similar opportunities, please contact educationworks@elba-1.org.uk.

To stay up to date with the latest news, opportunities and success stories, please sign up to receive our monthly newsletter, here.