SFEDI and the IOEE have recently hosted a number of workshops presenting the new enterprise and entrepreneurship educator standards which were developed in partnership by SFEDI and Enterprise Educators UK. The development of the standards drew upon the experience and contribution of those involved in enterprise education across the country and the workshops provided an opportunity to share the standards with educators. The standards can be used by organisations in many ways including creating learning programmes, developing best practice guides, writing job descriptions, developing codes of conduct and many more ways. Feedback on how the standards could be used was gained from the attendees at each event and a task and finish group is planned to take forward this piece of work.
During the events we took the opportunity to reflect back on the existing enterprise and enterprise standards and invite our partners to demonstrate how they had used the existing enterprise and enterprise support standards to embed and promote enterprise both internally and externally to their organisations.
Highlights from the events have included hearing how Manchester Metropolitan University have used standards to create an infrastructure which enables enterprise to be embedded across the curricula. This is a good example of best practice and we were delighted to listen to Carolyn Branston and Matt McDonald from MMU give accounts from each of their faculties within the university.
At the London and Norwich events we were joined by Gaynor Hodge, National Franchise Manager at TONI&GUY who brought the workshops to life in TONI&GUY style with their brand video introduction. Gaynor provided an insight to the world of fashion and hairdressing and exemplified how the standards can be used in a variety of sectors to develop enterprise skills and know-how.
At the Manchester and London events David Morgan, enterprise coach at Novus Group spoke about the enterprise and entrepreneurship education they deliver within the justice sector. Novus deliver learning within over 60 prisons across the UK and David clearly demonstrated the impact of this support in terms of the prospects for prisoners and also the positive effect on the economy.
We were delighted to be joined by Christine Atkinson at a number of the events. Christine who is Deputy Director of the University’s Centre for Enterprise and Head of the Women’s Entrepreneurship Hub spoke about the Women Adding Value (WAVE) project. Christine’s talk demonstrated the transformative effect that the programme had on women who have engaged with the project.
The final event was held in Leeds last week and we were delighted to welcome the new vice chair of Enterprise Educators, Dr Sarah Underwood to open the event. We were joined at the event by Centrepoint, an IOEE Enterprise Academy. Michael Glenn, Head of Skills Development, spoke passionately about how the learning opportunities they provide make such a positive impact in the young people’s lives they support.
A key theme across all of the workshops has been the value of developing and nurturing an enterprising mindset and in the current uncertain economic times this is vital to ensure businesses can not only survive but thrive.
To find out more about the outcomes from the workshops and how you can engage with the standards to support enterprise learning and skills, please contact Sarah Trouten – [email protected]