Outreach Strategy: Planning

The outreach strategy for Powerful Partnerships is split into two sections, it is designed to strengthen your outreach strategy and ensure you secure the right partners to build strong sustainable relationships. The first section is ‘Prepare your outreach plan’ and the second is ‘Execute your outreach plan’. Be sure to work through both sections to achieve the best results for your outreach strategy. Building strong sustainable relationships will also help UK schools/colleges achieve Gatsby Benchmarks 2. Learning from career and labour market information, 4. Linking curriculum learning to careers, 5. Encounters with employers and employees and 6. Experiences of the workplaces, it will also support the development of the school/college careers plan. Effectively working together will also significantly improve student and community outcomes.

Part 1 - Prepare & Plan your outreach

Once you have assessed the readiness of your school/ college and your partners (see previous units and associated resources) you are ready to plan your outreach strategy. This section is a planning tool to prepare your outreach plan with helpful resources to start you in the process. (You may also find some of the information you have already collected in your ‘Recruit and Assess’ step will help you at this stage).

The diagram above, 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 ‘Prepare & Plan’ element of the process.

2. What Makes Powerful Partnerships Different?

Before you can make an effective pitch asking school/ college colleagues and employer partners to commit to in-depth, exciting, intense, and trailblazing collaboration, it’s important to consider exactly what you are asking them to do, and why. It is so important you know your ‘Ask’ and understand your ‘Why’

For example, questions to ask yourself:

• What kinds of learning do we want students to engage in, and how is that different from what they may have experienced in the past?
• How will employer partners engage differently with teachers (within the structure of their subject) and with students? How is this different from previous involvement?
• What does the employer hope to gain from this partnership?
• What changes in approach will powerful partnerships require from teachers, SLT?

Target your outreach efforts toward those who are likely to make the necessary investment to achieve a high level of partnership. Powerful partnerships will require additional time and effort, more frequent contact and communications, and a longer-term commitment, but the benefits are endless!

3. Define the Goals and Effectiveness of Your Outreach Plan

In order to measure the effectiveness of your outreach plan for powerful partnerships, you must first define your SMART goals. Then, you must plan how you intend to assess these goals. Doing so will help you strengthen your outreach plan for future use.

Be sure to identify how you plan to track progress towards your goal(s) and how and when you will reflect on what’s working and what’s not. That way, at the end of the year, you can take steps to continuously improve recruiting and securing partners more effectively and efficiently.

Please see some sample goals and objectives along with a worksheet you can use and adapt. Please note this is simply an example, it is important you set your own achievable goals. You can also make use of your data from you ‘Recruit and Assess’ step to inform this piece of work. You may be able to transfer some information to make this a quicker, simpler process.

Please download the overview for sample goals and a template.

4. Environmental Scan: What currently exists in my community?

First thing to think about when environmental scanning, do you know what employer and school partnerships exist or have potential in your community? Here you should do an environmental scan and map out the alignment between your school/college and existing (and potential) employer partners. Quick research using your local job centre website and LMI information which can be provided from National Careers Service or your local authority should provide enough information to complete the following: You could also contact your local careers hub facilitator who should be able to help.

• List the high-skill, high-demand, high-wage industries in your community.
• Make a list of partners associated with these industries in your community (i.e., businesses, associations, schools, and FE, HE institutions)
• What work-based learning opportunities (related to your region’s targeted industries) are provided to students in and out of the classroom?
• What programs of study within these targeted industries are offered locally?

5. Key Messages and Talking Points for Employer Partners, School Leaders, Teachers, Students and Parents/Carers

Knowing your audience is essential during outreach. Thinking through what your message for your meeting should be is critical, this will set you up for success.

Download the overview for sample 'key messages' and 'talking points' customised for each target audience.

6. Draft Your Messages

Download the overview identify a particular person in each role listed in the first column of the rubric on page 8. Jot down specific talking points you would share with them given what you know about their motivations to begin a deeper partnership.

7. Strengthen Your Messages

Consider how you might strengthen your initial messages and/or talking points. Using the layout above, think more deeply about how to strategically craft the message for a particular role. It usually helps to have a specific person in mind. Doing so will make it easier to customise and strengthen your key message.

Things to think about:

• Did you use the influential key messages to partner? If not, how can they be used to strengthen your messages?
• How did you explain the benefits of powerful partnerships to each audience? Did you do so in a way that is specific to their role and to their motivations to support and/or begin powerful partnerships?
• What questions do you think each role would have for you and how might you provide clarity in your message elevating their wonders or even confusion?
  

8. Plan for Partner Outreach

Start by building an employer profile which includes as much information as possible. This will help determine the best subject/teacher match. To maintain efficient records, use a database or spreadsheet to capture the data keeping numerous employer details in one place. You can also use your ‘Ask’ and your careers plan/programme to inform the opportunities you have for employers.

Please download the overview and use the Plan for Partner Outreach Worksheet on page 10.

9. Create Your Ask

You have researched your employer partner and completed their profile. You have also spent time understanding and identifying the key needs from all partners including employers, school/college leaders, teachers, students and parents/carers. Now it’s time to clarify your “Ask.”

There are three things to remember:

• Be flexible. Have several needs in mind, but listen to the desires of the employer before asking for engagement.
• Keep it simple, but be specific. Start the relationship with understanding of wants and needs. However, your “ask” should have specifics of time commitment, involvement, and resources needed.
• Discuss how you will communicate and coordinate in the future. Set a solid foundation for collaboration. Communication is key to developing powerful partnerships.
  

You can also use the Menu of Opportunities on page 11 of the overview document, this is simply an example which you can adapt. You can include any opportunity which best suits your careers programme. You could also add other columns to include additional details if this would help your employers and you could always add a column for the employer to sign up to specific opportunities when on- boarding. You can use this in addition to your Outreach Worksheet from page 10 or simply merge them together to keep everything in one place.