Autumn Term Highlights: Inspiring Young Minds and Preparing Students for the World of Work

As we kick off 2025, we wanted to reflect on an autumn-term programme full of industry-led workshops and hands-on work experience programmes.

Designed to highlight career opportunities and offer real-world experiences for young people across the Tees Valley, we collaborated with several secondary schools in the region to deliver a series of in-school career workshops and school enrichment activities with a diverse range of businesses from various sectors.

Over the past three months, we joined thousands of students through career fairs and conventions held at Ryehills, Hummersknott, and Laurence Jackson. We also hosted nine workshops covering a range of sectors for the students of Huntcliff and Laurence Jackson. Business members of High Tide generously offered their time, expertise, and advice in joining us to deliver the workshops. One such member was none other than newly appointed Ambassador Emily Skillcorn from Jacksons Law Firm.

Students of Huntcliff and Laurence Jackson thoroughly enjoyed workshops delivered by Paula, Tim, and Andrew from Sir Robert McAlpine.

A year 8 student from Huntcliff comments,  “I really enjoyed that session, it was good to meet Engineers and learn about what they do because I want to be an Engineer when I leave school”

Tim of Sir Robert McAlpine found the workshop very rewarding and was happy to share his knowledge and experience of the Engineering sector.

Tim shared his thoughts on the building activity he carried out with the students, “I am so impressed at how well the students did with the task, this is the best tower I’ve ever seen created through this activity” 

In addition to the workshops and enrichment activities, we also joined the RNLI in celebrating their 200th-year anniversary. Volunteers delivered water safety sessions to 200 people, of which 23 attendees were High Tide students. These events provided life-saving information to these young people on how to stay safe around water, including cold water shock and how to be safe at the beach.

One technique used by High Tide to provide young people with an accurate idea of what particular careers entail is to provide “day in the life” stories. We have developed these stories using High Tide heroes that are made up of our fantastic business members.

In October, we launched our very first High Tide Hero, following a day in the life of Toby Joel from Jacksons Law Firm.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1c3D9QJ6m2GcQbkpp1QFx05PbjjLwgeLf/view?usp=drive_web

We rely on the generosity of our business members to give their time to deliver these programmes and would like to express our sincerest appreciation to Michael Shakesheff, Michael Bertram, Jack Holmes, Neil Young, Emily Skillcorn, and members of Jacksons Law Firm, Paula McMahon, Tim Nuttall, and Andrew of Sir Robert McAlpine, as well as the volunteers from RNLI.

General Manager, Lauren Bywater shared her thoughts, “We have had an incredible Autumn term with lots of activity happening. The amount of young people we have been able to provide career education to this term has been very impressive, which is all down to the hard work of our Programme Coordinator, Hughston Taylor alongside our fantastic business members.”

Whether it’s a career workshop or a sector week, all our sessions are industry-led, meaning our business members play a crucial role in the success of our programmes. It’s not just the students who benefit from taking part. Our business members showcase the exciting career opportunities within their sector, often helping students discover paths they might not have known existed, helping to build a pipeline of skilled young people and demonstrating their commitment to CSR and ESG initiatives across our local community.

For the schools involved, our unique High Tide programmes seamlessly integrated into their existing timetables and curricula, enhancing career education and helping to meet their Gatsby benchmark requirements.

As always, we’d like to give a big shout-out to all the businesses involved in delivering the programmes, and we’re always on the lookout for more companies of all sizes and sectors to get involved.

Whether through our in-school workshops or hosting a workplace visit, it’s easy to get involved, and we’ll provide all the support you need to get started.

If you want to get involved with High Tide, please contact Lauren at lauren@hightidefoundation.co.uk or visit our contact page.