Blairgowrie High School seek new partners

Blairgowrie High School are keen to work with businesses to offer opportunities for their young people.

Blairgowrie High School are very fortunate that many of our local businesses already engage with us in offering opportunities for our young people. We will soon be launching our Blairgowrie Partnership Programme which will enhance our existing partnerships and hopefully encourage new partnership arrangements.

Nationally a report has been produced that calls on schools, colleges and employers to ensure that we are all working together to maximise the chances of young people ending up in employment, training or further education after school life.  The report is called Developing the Young Workforce and can be read at http://www.gov.scot/Resource/0046/00466386.pdf .

What does this mean in Blairgowrie High School?

In addition to Maths and English and course choices all senior phase (S4 – S6) pupils will study Learning to Learn, Enterprise and Citizenship and Scotland’s Culture.  A number of Wider Achievement and Vocational Education (WAVE) opportunities will be offered to all pupils, including the option of a year-long placement (2 hours a week).  Many of these opportunities lead to an additional qualification.

In partnership with Perth College, foundation apprenticeships will be offered over S5 and S6 (two-year courses) from 2016 onwards.

Blairgowrie has long had a tradition of working in partnership with many of our local businesses and it is from this strong base we are enhancing our partnerships to offer more opportunities to our young people. 

As part of the new Blairgowrie Partnership Programme, a bronze, silver or gold award will be awarded to recognise the level of partnership working and to hopefully use as a base to increase the level of commitment from local employers over the years.

Being a school partner can bring many benefits to a company, including:

• The opportunity to influence the discussion on matching the development of skills to the needs of their company

• Improving workforce diversity, flow and staff retention

• Helping to "future-proof" their business - bring in new ideas and new skills

• Influencing schools to understand and embrace the world of work to produce better recruits and help employers understand what young people can offer

• Opportunities to identify future recruits

• Bringing adaptable and flexible young people into the workforce

• Greater cost-effectiveness due to lower recruitment costs and wages

If you would like work with Blairgowrie High School to develop Scotland’s young work force and nurture our local talent then please get in touch with Monica Young Project Officer – Wider Achievement monicayoung@pkc.gov.uk .