Powerful Partnerships Evaluation & Celebration
A significant element of building sustainable powerful partnerships is evaluation and celebration. After each year of deep engagement with employers it is essential you evaluate the success of each partnership. You will need to evaluate students, teachers and employers to gain a broad perspective of the impact of the partnership from all involved. This will also help you plan your employer engagement for the next academic year. This resource intends to demonstrate the different ways in which you can evaluate and celebrate and offers tools to help you get started.
The diagram, from Ford Next Generation Learning, shows the process you will need to follow to ensure you build and retain powerful partnerships. This unit covers the ‘Evaluate’ element and ‘Celebrate’ element of the process.
You can evaluate in different ways, through informal discussion, team planning and surveys. The key is to be clear what you want to capture and to ensure you capture the data needed. If you do a combination of informal discussion, team planning and surveys you will capture a really broad picture of the powerful partnerships from all involved. The below examples are there to help you consider what kind of evaluations you may want to use. You can use these examples as they are or adapt them for your own needs.
Team evaluations
This could be used with teams of students, teachers or employers. As long as you structure the time and be clear what you need to capture. You could use a simple template as on page 3 of the overview document, using sticky notes and large pieces of paper or a white board to capture the information. You could then transfer the data to a more structured format. You could also use the below questions to structure informal conversations to be used as part of your evaluation process.
- What went well and why?
- What would you keep and why?
- What didn't work so well and why?
- What would you change and why?
- What new ideas do you have?
- How can we keep building on our relationship?
Another way to evaluate all those involved is by using surveys. You can be quite specific with the questions on a survey and if you use an on line tool you can export the data in spreadsheets and charts. On pages 4-9 of the overview document you will find 3 example survey questions, one for students, one for teachers and one for employers, you can use your own specific questions to make it personal to your employer engagement and careers programme.
Powerful Partnerships Thank You & Celebrate!
At the end of each engagement activity and definitely at the end of the academic year it is incredibly important you send a thank you email to the employers that have committed to a full year of powerful partnerships. This speaks volumes and will ensure you sustain a strong relationship with your employer partners. Also encourage the teachers/lecturers to send a thank you to the employer for spending time supporting their careers development and helping them link real-world examples to the curriculum, contextualising learning for their students, improving engagement and inspiring the future workforce. Encourage teachers/lecturers to keep in touch with the employer, they may agree to even deeper engagement next academic year increasing the impact on your students learning. Share your evaluation and outcomes with your employer. Employers are keen to see the value of their engagement. This will also gain their support in other activities or they may commit to another full year of engagement. Keep in touch and communicate regularly, this will help sustain your relationship and build a strong working relationship for the future. Communication is key!
Thank You Letter
Without business partnerships, real world learning would not be possible. Please encourage your teachers to extend them the professional courtesy of a formal, professional thank you note. A sample is shown on page 10 of the overview document, but they are to draft a letter of their own, citing personal experiences they enjoyed during their engagement. Also remember to send a thank you regularly from a strategic level to keep your relationships strong.
Please either email or post a typed letter to the business, on school headed paper, shortly after completing the engagement.
Celebrate!
A great way to showcase the schools/colleges work with your employer partners is to celebrate! Give teachers/lecturers and students the opportunity to showcase their work. You could hold a large event and invite parents and employers or you can keep it low key and showcase with other teachers and students in school/college. However you decide to celebrate, ensure teachers/lecturers, employers and students gain recognition for their work and have an opportunity to talk about their experience. This is a great way to encourage others to be part of this programme and to ensure staff and employers feel valued, and the experience has had a real impact.
Congratulations! You have completed all units as part of the 'Powerful Partnerships' resource. You are now ready to build strong, sustainable employer partnerships to support the development of your school/college careers plan and improve student and community outcomes.
Also don't forget to check out the '5 Key Tips to Building Partnerships' which is a quick guide for you and your team when building meaningful employer partnerships.
GOOD LUCK!
