Unconditional
Love:
Why
Unconditional
Offers
from
Universities are Unacceptable
This is a guest post by a parent whose daughter is going through the
UCAS application process.
‘Ping!’ the phone blurts.
‘Ping!’ it blurts again. As every parent knows this constant pinging of messages
on your offspring’s phone is a nudge out of your current task and a call to arms.
I was just about to launch into my usual ‘what are you doing on your phone all the
time?’ parental speech when my daughter spoke first. ‘Another unconditional!’
she exclaimed. She informed that as it was university application season, offers
for places were coming through for her friends at a rate of knots.
After a full interrogation, it turns out that pretty much all of her friends have
received unconditional offers to read a variety of subjects, such as Chemistry,
Geography, Biomedicine, History, at prestigious Russell Group universities, such
as Nottingham, Birmingham, York, to name a few. Lower down the pecking order
unconditional are being handed out like confetti. What’s going on? It was
supposed to be really hard to get into uni. All that time studying for GCSEs, doing
work experience, volunteering, playing school sport on a Saturday morning, all
designed to help write the personal statement. Did it really matter?
Although it may be very flattering to receive an unconditional offer for university,
you have to realise that it’s not personal. You want to believe that the university
of your choice has specifically selected you because you are gifted and talented.
Although that may be true, it’s actually more about the ‘bums on seats’ principle.
What it signifies is that there is a seismic shift taking place at universities. You
see universities are no longer seats of learning, they are businesses. What’s the
difference? Well, the difference is that they want to make money, they have to
make money, lots of money or they won’t survive.
They have become money machines and the quid pro quo therefore is that they
must focus on student satisfaction and VFM (value for money); not things they
were bothered about 30 years ago. What does it mean? Well, you think you are
paying for nice teachers who will spoonfeed you to a career-launching degree,
but, of course, although they can guarantee that you have a ‘good time’, there are
no guarantees of a First or a job; can’t do that. Nowadays, there are league tables
for universities where the position in the league depends on these student
satisfaction factors. Prospective students and parents scour these tables, make
their selections and want to know what they are going to get for their money.
However, this is where I believe the universities (and the government) have to be
careful because the system is very opaque.
All of this opens the door to potential disillusionment and dissatisfaction when
students leave university and eventually realise that they can’t find the dream job,
that they believe university made little difference to their prospects and that they
found the journey unsuitably hard, collecting humongous debt pile along the way.
They were missold.
Faiz Siddiqui is currently suing Oxford University, claiming that poor teaching of
a module led to him graduating with a 2:1 instead of the First he expected. This
‘failure’ has affected his career choices and consequently he now suffers from
depression.
This is a shame for Faiz. What it signifies is the disconnection between what he
thought he was buying and what he actually bought. Whether he wins the case or
not is immaterial, it’s what it represents that matters. More and more students
are going to end up submerged in debts and feel that they have been ‘missold’
their life opportunity when it turns out that studying Geography at Leicester
doesn’t lead to a path paved with gold. There’ll be disappointment and a raft of
class action court cases to follow and eventually one will win, opening the
floodgates.
Universities can now offer an unlimited number of places to students so they have
decided to ‘fill their boots’ before the government imposes a cap on the number of
students at any institution. By offering unconditionals they are pushing students
to accept the offer so that way the universities have certainty of the numbers
attending over the coming year. That’s good business planning. What they are not
taking into account is the standard of the students and whether the students will
struggle when they arrive on the course. The problem with unconditionals is that
they are conditional, the unconditional part is only valid if the student firms that
place as their number one choice. Many students do this for the security, but
there is a massive knock-on effect; they are less likely to try very hard to achieve
high grades because they don’t need to. You can relax, three Cs will do. The
problem with that is that employers down the line may be very concerned about
someone’s ability. Many employers I speak to say that they focus on assessing and
comparing A level grades as a filter rather than the murky waters of which degree
and university. Most students don’t realise and are lured into a trap.
Meanwhile, back at home, my daughter has received offers but alas no
unconditionals, however, as I’ve been telling her ‘that’s a good thing, right?’ She’s
not convinced!
What?! Another thing SLT want
me to do……..or is it?
This is a guest post by Kate Porter, Senior Tutor and Biology teacher at
Holy Cross College in Bury.
I am a busy class teacher, pastoral tutor and working mum, and as such, I am
always rushing down corridors, speed teaching the latest revised syllabus and
spilling my breakfast down my unironed blouse (‘it doesn’t matter – I’ll just leave
my cardigan on’). My life is hectic. It’s full on. I sometimes catch sight of my
reflection in a window as I run (awkwardly) into my next case conference,
greeting parents with apologies about my lateness, ‘sorry, there’s been an
emergency ….’, ‘sorry, I had to take an important call …’ and it’s all true. Pastoral
is no showboat. There are no short cuts. There is a daily stream of teenage angst
waiting at my door, excuses about missed work and daily panic about the future.
One thing that I’ve learnt as a tutor is that students are unpredictable – they don’t
always do as they are told (surprise – surprise). They can be apathetic, withdrawn
and disruptive. Why? Well for a whole host of very good reasons – their personal
circumstances, their latest turbulent relationship or just because they got out of
bed the wrong way but one thing that often unites these students – one thing that
crops up time and time again, is an uncertainty about the future. A haze about
why they are doing the course – how it will help them – and the biggest of all,
what they are going to ‘be.’
This ‘be’ is a biggie. ‘And what do you want to ‘be’ when you grow up?’ choruses
nearly every grown up when you are little. I wanted to ‘be’ a mounted police
woman. Why? I’m bossy and like horses. My colleague wanted to be a criminal
psychologist. Why? They’d watched Cracker in the early 90s. My son wants to be
a dinosaur. Why? He likes them. I’ve yet to break the news …… As adults, we
have an obsession about what we should or shouldn’t be and the way we are
going to achieve this aim. The problem is, it doesn’t always work out.
Fast forward to a telephone call or case conference with anxious parents
concerned about why their teenage son or daughter is underachieving and 9
times out of 10, we reach the conclusion that it’s because they have no goal. They
have no aim. They have lost sight of their dream to be an astronaut, doctor,
engineer etc etc. They haven’t got the grades, they’ve refused to reconsider their
long term career aspiration and now they’re at sea. Disrupting their history class
is a symptom, failing to submit their Chemistry homework is another, struggling
to organise their time independently another, even lack of sleep. If you’ve lost
sight of what you want to ‘be,’ how do you motivate yourself to get the grades to
let you onto a teaching course or start your apprenticeship?
I suppose this is the point I’m making. A strong pastoral team recognises the
importance of careers staff and employability guidance. Their role is pivotal in
focusing and refocusing students when the going gets tough. As important as all
the other aspects of a pastoral team, including the college nurse, counsellor,
student services, learning support and 1-2-1 target setting, careers’ staff are
flexible to students’ successes and failures, advising them on courses and
opportunities open to them. Knowledgeable about course requirements and the
latest buzz in the recruitment sector. Assessing current achievement and
discussing achievable goals.
Last year, we were introduced to Kloodle by our Careers’ team. A platform that
initially seemed Facebook familiar in aesthetic and that the students enjoyed
using. Staff were resistant, concerned about their lack of technical know-how,
worried about keeping up with the latest millennial hype. What if it isn’t private?
What if students write something silly and it can never be erased? What if I click
the wrong button? What if they don’t use it? What if they upload inappropriate
photos? What if …..? What if ……? What if ……? Well we used it and continue to
do so and none of this has happened. Our students are introduced to Kloodle as
part of the first tutorial focused on profile setting and target setting. We remind
students of the importance of regularly updating their profile and evidencing their
skill-set. This year we have introduced half termly skills’ weeks, where curriculum
staff have to focus on an SLT prioritised employability skill and include it in their
lesson. Students regularly review and assess their achievements and build
towards the next stage on their career path. The onus shifts towards the student.
In regularly reviewing their skill acquisition, they are moulding their own future
employability. And of course, this has all had its benefits. Students acknowledge
gaps in their skill-sets and are more proactive in addressing them. They
understand their own market value and just as they create their own image on
Facebook, they are aware of addressing a more formal audience on Kloodle.
So, I find myself asking my own questions: What if Kloodle isn’t all that
complicated to use after all? What if students reconsider some of their on-line
behaviours? What if this platform truly does impact on the future of students?
What if Kloodle encourages students to be more aware of their future from the
start of their college experience? What if students regularly update their skills’
evidence? What if Kloodle raises students’ awareness of new companies, new
roles, new jobs? What if students do use their Kloodle CV and acquire jobs from
it? What if it encourages those students who didn’t think they could, to apply for
aspirational opportunities?
What if the positives outweigh the fear of the unknown?
Perhaps, just perhaps, it can help with refocusing those students who have made
mistakes or fallen short of their aspirational goals. Maybe, Kloodle might just be
able to motivate students to achieve.
Guest Blog – Michael Dewsbury,
Ashton Sixth Form – Teamwork
and Commercial Awareness
This post welcomes Ashton Sixth Form student Michael Dewsbury to the Kloodle
blog. The post describes Michael’s experiences participating in the Go4SET
competition. The competition required the use of many skills such as teamwork,
commercial awareness, planning, research and verbal communication. The post
does a fantastic job in describing how Michael developed these skills throughout
the project. You can view Michael’s public Kloodle profile here
– https://kloodle.com/profile/mdewsbury/public
In high school I entered a program called Go4set. This was an engineering
project which many other schools from across the country took part in. I
was one of around 12 or 13 other students from our school. We were split
into 2 groups and my group worked on an Eco friendly water system for
our high school. It was never going to be made but we treated the
project as if it was going to be manufactured.
We made a large Word document introducing ourselves and saying what
we did for the project. My role included going on the school roof and
seeing where the water system could be placed, utilizing the school’s roof
space to create a water collection tank and water system for toilets or taps
in the school.
I went to the finance supervisor of the school, Mr France, and worked on
budgets for the project. This helped build my commercial awareness. I
was also the person the most involved in making a 3D cardboard and
paper model of part of the high school where the water system was to be
implemented, and adding parts to the roof.
We went on several trips out of the school. One of the trips was to a
college. Our school, along with several others taking part in Go4set,
was given the task making things out of Mecano, which helped develop my
teamwork skills. Another task involved buying and selling parts with fake
currency. Another trip was to a sewage works where we took notes on how
sewage was treated within the system. The last trip was to the college
again to showcase our project alongside the teams in the other high
schools, this demonstrated my verbal communication and ability to
present.
My team won first prize. Each of us received a silver crest award, which is
a certificate, and a £10 voucher.
5 Qualities Apprentices Can Add to
Your Workforce – Guest Post by
Tom Cox, Babington Group
Tom Cox is a Digital Marketing Executive for the Babington Group – a UK
training, apprenticeship, and traineeship provider. Babington offer a range of
apprenticeships in a number of sectors including accounting, warehousing, social
media, and many more.
If you are an employer on the lookout for an apprentice, you can enquire here or
if you are looking to start an apprenticeship, you can search through Babington’s
current opportunities here.
You can also connect with Babington Group through Facebook and Twitter.
With the government committed to a further three million apprenticeship starts
by 2020, it’s clear that apprentices will play an important role in bolstering the
British workforce. The Apprenticeship Levy comes into place in April next year,
meaning many companies are looking to brush up their apprenticeship knowledge
before taking them on.
As novices to the sector they are about to enter, apprentices can be a refreshing
addition to your workforce, who are willing to prove themselves and strengthen
their career prospects. 89% of employers reported that apprentices helped their
business improve the quality of their good or service, and these could be down to
qualities such as these:
A hunger to impress
One of the most impressive aspects of an apprentice is their enthusiasm to work
hard and impress the company that takes them on. Other businesses tend to
agree, as 90% of apprentices stay in employment after finishing, with 71% staying
with the same employer.
Remember, apprentices aren’t just working to collect a cheque at the end of the
month – the reason they signed up to an apprenticeship is to learn new skills,
become an important member of a team, and begin to shape their career –
meaning they’ll put 110% effort in to learning every detail of the job. Those who
have ‘been there, done that’ may feel less inclined to put the effort in.
A new perspective
What apprentices lack in experience, they will make up for with fresh ideas. If, for
example, you work in digital marketing, you’ll be working on the same website
every day. That means that sometimes you’ll become blind to features that are
perhaps not so user friendly.
With little to no industry experience to bias their way of thinking, apprentices can
give you valuable fresh eyes, and if they’re feeling confident, a few new ideas.
This spirit can also translate through the rest of your workforce, as 92% of
employers who hire apprentices believe that they contribute to a more motivated
and satisfied workforce.
As a growing business, it’s important to welcome these new ideas and
perspectives that will enable you to embrace the future.
A natural understanding of technology
Speaking of embracing the future, apprentices these days have a natural aptitude
for technology. Growing up around computers and social media from an early age,
this generation adapt to new technology quickly, while more experienced heads
may show more resistance.
In this fast-moving digital world, it’s essential for employers to increase the
digital skills gap in their organisation to drive their business forward.
A ‘mouldable’ mind
Hiring an apprentice includes the added benefit that their skills will be tailored to
your company as they train. They will come into the business and learn to work
your way, instead of teaching a new recruit to unlearn old habits and adjust to
your business.
With an apprentice, you can instil good habits and your own company ethos. It’s
also reported that 59% of employers said that it’s more cost effective to train
apprentices than hire skilled staff, as their qualification costs will be completely
government funded if they are under 19 years old.
You shouldn’t feel overloaded with training obligations, as an apprenticeship
programme is designed to reduce the training your business needs to provide,
and teach them key skills to bring them up to speed quickly.
Loyalty
With the dog-eat-dog job market, young people are looking to join companies who
will invest in their development and give them valuable skills needed for the
future. Employees that feel cared for are more likely to work harder, leading to a
degree of loyalty to your business.
An apprenticeship is a huge benefit to the person you are looking to take on, as it
gives an answer to the experience paradox – that you can’t get a job without
experience, but you can’t get the experience without a job. You will be giving an
apprentice an opportunity that they would not have had otherwise.
80% of companies who invest in apprentices have reported a significant increase
in employee retention, and the chance to mould an employee straight from school
could mean better retention figures and a big pay off in apprenticeship
investment in the long run.
Guest Blog Post – Soundsphere
Editor and Founder Dom Smith
Passion plays a large part in success. It is very rare to make waves without
passion churning up the water. Passion is the driver of success – and without it
you are fighting a losing battle. Soundsphere Magazine was founded on a passion
for writing and incredible music (and the lifestyle that goes with the two). Editor
and founder Dom Smith explains to Kloodle how he followed his passion and is
living the life he loves.
They say the best jobs are the hardest. When (one of) your jobs involves running
(or hobbling at speed) around festivals in Europe, while also dealing with
Cerebral Palsy (and walking with two sticks), I guess you could say that my job as
a journalist and editor of Soundsphere magazine is challenging.
This passion is what has driven me forward. I wasn’t really that great in school, in
fact, I was pretty terrible. I just happened to be good at English, and that’s pretty
much it! I always wanted to be a writer, and as such my other subjects suffered.
I’m still just as passionate about writing as I was when I was a seven-year-old
writing silly stories about giants. Like I said, it’s passion – pure and simple, that
has allowed me to get to where I am. I’ve had the opportunity to work with such a
diverse range of people, from successful rock stars like Metallica and The Prodigy
to up-and-coming Yorkshire bands like La Petite Mort, A Joker’s Rage, Officers
and The Holy Orders. I love this job! How did it happen for me? Well, I’ll try and
give you the condensed version of events.
After I left school, I went to Wyke College in Hull to do Media, Drama and English
Language and Literature (it was actually here where I first discovered my great
passion for magazines). Once I’d finished three years, I went on to a degree in
Theatre, Film and Television at York St John University – this was a lot of fun, I
still love acting to this day, and I even got to do a semester abroad in the US at
Keene State to expand my skill-set as a performer. The thing was, that I kept
getting typecast as an old man (probably something to do with the sticks, right?),
and I wanted something else – something exciting and challenging that would
push me far beyond the realms of anything I’d ever done before. So, when I
finished my degree I started looking at ways to break into a career in magazine
journalism. First, I did an internship with Stuff, the gadget magazine (I stayed
with family and slept on floors down in London to do this), and once I’d finished
that, I went to do an MA in Magazine Journalism – did one year there, and it gave
me the training and skills I needed to take my career further. More internships
and freelance work followed for the likes of NME.com, Rock Sound and Metal
Hammer in London, and then I received a grant from York St John University, to
come back up north and start a magazine!
Soundsphere magazine has grown over the last six years – now we’re
internationally recognised and we get to cover festivals around the world – as a
bonus we get loads of cool stuff for free. For that, and the work I have done with
my other projects Disabled Entrepreneurs and The Creative Condition, I’ve won a
National Diversity Award for Entrepreneurial Excellence (2012), and I was one of
100 Happiest people in the UK according to the Independent on Sunday’s Happy
List last year! How awesome is that?
It’s simple really, it’s down to connections I made during my earliest placements
and internships, and hard work. In my industry (music and entertainment), it’s all
about who you know, and the friends that you make, as well as how hard you are
willing to work. If I can do it, anybody can. Work damn hard, be good at what you
do, and just keep going no matter what – of course you’ll get knocked down and
rejected at times, but when that happens don’t be disheartened, because if you’re
good to people you work with, and you do good work then good stuff will happen.
Don’t be afraid to make mistakes and learn from them. That sounds cheesy as all
hell, but it’s the truth in my mind. Work as hard as you can in school, it doesn’t
matter if you’re not great at everything though. Work as hard as you can in
college and university because your grades will help you in the future, and you’ll
feel so proud.
Honestly though, and this goes for most industries, experience is number one. Do
internships wherever your main industry is. Get a work placement at your dream
job and impress them – make good cups of tea and do all the rubbish jobs to start
with, because that’s how you’ll get your break. Obviously, there are loads of paths
you can take, but whichever one you do choose, just give it your best shot.
Thanks so much for reading! If you have any questions, feel free to get in touch!
For more information visit: www.soundspheremag.com
Viral Marketing – Guest Post by Jo
McGrann
Jo McGrann is an Advertising & Brand Management Student at Manchester
Metropolitan University. Here is her guest blog describing her experiences with
viral marketing, and how the project has augmented her employability skills. Her
blog can be found at www.allmarketingthings.wordpress.com – take a look!
Before I started University, everyone said to me “your first year at uni doesn’t
count towards anything”. However, I found my first year to be very different. As I
started studying Advertising and Brand Management at Manchester Metropolitan
University I put 100% effort into any project or assignment I worked on. I also
met with other girls on my course that all had the same hard-working mentality as
me and we always worked together on every group project.
Near to the end of first year when assignments were coming to an end, we were
introduced to the tool of viral marketing. We learnt about how they work and how
successful they can actually be – this lead to everyone being given the task of
created a one minute video of an “unboxing of a Kinder Egg” and the video had to
last one minute. We were to create these in groups (I already had my team sorted)
then upload them onto YouTube and whoever got the highest views within a week
won a prize.
The video of the #KinderCow was born. My group and I already had a joint
Twitter account from a previous assignment and we used this to tweet celebrities
to attempt to gain more views, we tweeted credible celebrities who may have
followers that may be interested in our project. We managed to get almost 1,000
views ourselves before the views rocketed, Lord Alan Sugar retweeted our tweet
including the YouTube link to our video. This lead to over 26,000 views in just a
matter of days and to this day the number is still rising. We ended up winning the
competition and having 2 articles written about what we had achieved. It was
exciting for all of us.
Now I have just finished my second year I realise how important it is to work hard
in first year (as well as the second and third), as my accomplishments in my first
year still affect me today. The articles are real life proof of things which have
happened that I can show employers and say “I was a part of that”. It spurred me
on to make sure I always put 100% effort into everything, both inside and outside
of University. It also encouraged me to improve my employability as much as I
can
–
leading
me
to
creating
my
own
blog
www.allmarketingthings.wordpress.com. Here I can practise my written skills and
showcase my opinions or skills, as competition for jobs is getting more and more
competitive it’s so important to do things that make you stand out. Recently I’ve
just got myself a placement year and during my interview for the job I was asked
about this project. Although it isn’t the only thing which got me the job, it is nice
to know there is something that I have done that interests people and makes me
stand out from other candidates. It is something I can be proud of to this day.