15billion’s Courtney and Anne-Marie travelled to Vienna in September for our third project meeting for Erasmus Employment Plus, a project that will support guidance practitioners who work with people with limited skills and qualifications.

Together with partners from six European partners, we reviewed a range of exciting new exercises which will support guidance practitioners to explore their work with clients using Action Learning Sets – a process that involves a small group working on real problems together.

The cookie factory in s-Hertogenbosch’s main purpose these days is as a cultural centre, and it was the venue for our pilot training for our Erasmus Employment Plus project in March 2020.

Ellie and Anne-Marie from 15billion travelled to the Netherlands to meet our European partners for the EEP project. This week the focus was on tryng out our exercises that will focus on supporting careers guidance practitioners who work with people with limited skills and qualifications. The curriculum is based on Action Learning, which means that it is collaborative and reflective and involves testing theory in practice.

During this challenging period and as we all come together to battle against the ongoing issues with COVID-19, 15billionebp would like to reiterate that our commitment to staff, young people, schools, businesses and other partners will remain a top priority.

At 15billionebp, we are always prepared to go above and beyond – especially during difficult times.  As such, we press ahead with our approach of implementing innovative solutions to ensure that our quality services continue to be delivered to each and every valued stakeholder.  As we continue to tailor our services during this tough period, we will ensure open communications with our entire community of young people, schools, businesses and other partners.

Our full statement can be found here:

15billionebp COVID-19 Statement 20th March 2020

A skills based volunteering day like no other saw over 150 interns from Deutsche Bank’s Summer Internship Programme visit Chobham Academy in Stratford, East London, for a full day of one-to-one mentoring with Year 10 students.

The volunteers and students worked together through a series of bespoke activities, designed to boost confidence, develop employability skills, and raise awareness of life in the working world. This culminated in a mock interview, which gave students the chance to put into practise the skills they had been working on all day.

15billionebp teamed up with partners London City Airport to design and deliver the ‘Women in Aviation’ programme involving 300 female pupils from East London secondary schools. Since January, the programme has worked with the students from 10 schools in Newham, Greenwich, Havering, Redbridge, Tower Hamlets, Waltham Forest and Barking & Dagenham, to highlight the opportunities in Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) and the career opportunities in the aviation industry.

The Women in Aviation programme took place over 3 Stages. Stage 1 involved a visit to the airport where students learnt about careers in aviation, and were set their challenge. In Stage 2, students were given 3-4 weeks to prepare their work, before 15billionebp visited each school to choose a finalist. The pupils in the programme applied STEM skills in an aviation-themed challenge set by the airport. They were tasked with coming up with conceptual proposals for London City Airport’s new terminal, which is currently being built as part of a £500 million transformation. The ten finalist groups attended Stage 3 of the programme, which took place at the Sunborn Hotel in Royal Victoria Dock. The finalists presented to a panel of judges and a winner was chosen, as well as winners for a selection of sub-categories.

Julianne Marriott, Cabinet Member for Education in Newham, also joined the event, which was won by pupils from Wanstead High School. Their prize includes a mentor session and a visit to the Emirates Aviation Experience

Overall Winner: Wanstead High School

Best Presentation: Langdon Academy

Best Business Case: Jo Richardson Community School

Most Creative Design: Forest Gate Community School

Students’ Winner: Langdon Academy

On 21st November 2018, 60 Year 10 students from Chobham Academy had the opportunity to work with Lendlease volunteers and run through a series of work related learning activities. The students worked in small teams and each team had its own volunteer playing the role of a ‘interviewer/assessor’ who were marking the students from a criteria list (as you would expect in a real life setting), with the students aware that they were going head to head with their peers. A winner from each of the nine groups will have the chance to return to Lendlease for a insight day in 2019.

The day tested the students in a number of ways such as; a numeracy and literacy assessment, a group activity and a group question and answer session. Working in unfamiliar groups, students were able to learn more about their peers as well as themselves! All of this was supported by experienced volunteers from Lendlease as part of Lendlease’s Community Day with each volunteer playing an important role in supporting and advising students throughout the day.

As you may already know, 15billionebp are managing the Newham Careers Cluster- a partnership of 14 secondary schools and colleges and 27 businesses supporting careers education in the borough.

On 15th October all 14 schools met for the first time at Clifford Chance LLP in Canary Wharf. We discussed a careers strategy for Newham as well as opportunities from organisations like East London Children’s University and New London Architecture.

This project, funded by the ESF and Skills Funding Agency, welcomed five new schools in June 2018: Plashet, Little Ilford, Brampton Manor Academy, Royal Docks Community School and Langdon Academy.