Form the Future CIC invited their biggest supporters from schools and businesses across Cambridgeshire to join them in celebrating the end of a very successful academic year! The summer party was held at the Cambridge Academy for Science and Technology (CAST) and was kicked off with a summary of our impact this year.
Through all our programmes, we have worked directly with 24,000 students aged 8-18 years old, from schools and colleges across Cambridgeshire. To put this in perspective, we have spent 60,000 hours providing them with careers inspiration and support – which is nearly 7 years!
This has included students taking part in 158 careers-awareness or employability skills events, 1,216 work experience placements, 92 mentee-mentor pairings, 200 students using our Careers Advisory Service and 1,070 students taking part in Cambridge LaunchPad, our STEM outreach programme. After taking part in our activity days with STEM industry partners, 95% of these students said they found STEM subjects more fun or interesting. These are the types of positive steps we are taking to equip young people with the skills, knowledge and experience they’ll need to join the world or work and to reduce skills gaps in the near future.
Alistair Easterfield, Assistant Head of CAST welcomed our volunteers, school partners and funders to the school. He explained that one of his main responsibilities is to manage careers guidance, so he has enjoyed working closely with us to develop the school’s careers programme through a series of events across the academic calendar.
CAST also took part in Cambridge LaunchPad, where their Year 12 students acted as ambassadors to lead an activity day for Year 5 students from The Spinney Primary School. Alistair said that this provided a fantastic and unique opportunity for students from both schools to learn STEM in a new way, and found that his ambassadors enjoyed inspiring the younger students and sharing their passion for STEM subjects.
Alistair then introduced Catrina, one of their Year 12 students who shared a positive experience that she had at one of our CV clinics. At these events, volunteers from businesses across Cambridge help students to improve their CVs, as well as developing essential interview skills. She found this very useful to prepare her for an interview for her first job, which she was successful in getting! She has also enjoyed being mentored, as she has been able to build a relationship with her mentor and learn more about their industry.
96% of students taking part in our mentoring programme, like Catrina, found the scheme helpful, whether for guidance on their potential choices in academia or pathways into industry, improve their confidence or provide emotional support.
The presentations were rounded up with our most frequent volunteers being awarded certificates and thanked for giving up so much of their time to help us work with young people and prepare them for life after school.
We are incredibly grateful for all of the support that we receive from volunteers, schools, parents, businesses and funders, as we cannot achieve our mission without you. Whether you volunteered at an event, donated to our first crowdfunding campaign or provided a work experience placement, you have helped a young person from our local community to develop the skills they’ll need to succeed in their future career.
Anne Bailey, Co-founder and Director of Form the Future CIC, said:
“It’s amazing to step back and quantify everything we’ve done this year. Without our brilliant volunteers, our generous funders and schools’ trust in us, we wouldn’t be able to have the impact we’ve had on over 24,000 young people this year alone. It was great to hear from Catrina that our works makes such a difference.”
If you want to volunteer at our events with students, sign up to our new volunteer portal – it’s the best way to see our upcoming events and to let us know if you’re interested!