Almost half of West Midland residents (46%) believe spending thousands of pounds on a university degree is not worth the debt when it comes to improving career chances, according to new research from Greene King.

The research, which was conducted for the UK’s leading hospitality apprenticeship provider to mark National Apprenticeship Week (4 – 8 March), found over three fifths (61%) would consider an apprenticeship as the most useful start to their career, and over four fifths (82%) see an apprenticeship as an attractive alternative to university. However, more than half (56%) believe there just aren’t enough apprenticeship schemes around.

Many think that apprenticeships should be made more accessible to those with a lower household income, with two thirds (66%) saying there should be more support to help them get into work.

One of the most important places that the next generation receives advice on what they should do in their careers is in the classroom. However, the survey revealed a shortfall in career advice at school. Almost half (47%) of most recent school leavers aged 18 to 24 found careers advice either not very useful OR not at all useful. More than one in ten (12%) 18 to 24-year olds said they weren’t offered careers advice at school at all.  

Greene King, the UK’s leading pub company and brewer, works directly with schools and colleges to promote the opportunities available to students and offers an award-winning apprenticeship programme that has trained 11,000 people since 2011. As part of a series of commitments in the company’s Stepping Up report, which was published in January and looks at addressing social mobility, Greene King will support 20,000 apprentices by 2022. 

Rooney Anand, chief executive of Greene King, said: “We recognise that a university degree isn’t the only option for young people when embarking on their journey to kick start a successful career. Apprenticeships provide the opportunity to learn and earn – something that works really well for our team members. We offer apprenticeships up to Level 5, which is equivalent to a Higher National Diploma, and have seen time and time again our people develop from a stop-gap job serving behind the bar to developing their career to become a general manager with the opportunity of running a multi-million pound turnover business employing as many as 70 people.

“In fact our general managers are instrumental to the success of our apprenticeship programme with 95% of our pubs having supported an apprentice since we launched our scheme in 2011. As we celebrate National Apprenticeship Week, we’re delighted to continue our support of 20,000 apprentices by 2022 as we continue to champion this important approach to learning and career development.”

Sian Cartwright, 25, was previously working within an insurance company before joining Greene King to broaden her career horizons. 

She is one of the many career success stories at the brewing and pubs giant, which pledges to have taken on 20,000 apprentices before the end of 2022. 

Sian says: “I was previously working within the insurance industry, before I decided to make the move in to hospitality. I had previously gone to college, even though I knew this was not the right path for me and after a few weeks, I left. 

“I then started a position with Greene King, working front of house. I worked with them for a while before recently having a baby and whilst on maternity leave the opportunity arose to join their apprenticeship scheme and I thought why not give it a go.  

“This gave me the opportunity to learn from home and manage my own work load which fits in perfectly with being a mum. I knew I wanted to improve my current skills and develop myself further for my job and someone has been on hand every step of the way to support my progression. 

“I have become a team leader and have just completed my level 3 hospitality supervisor and this all thanks to doing my apprenticeship. The next step for me is to continue my progression and I would like to become a general manager.  

“Starting my first apprenticeship has made me realise that it doesn’t matter how old you are, it’s never too late to start on a new path.” 

National Apprenticeship Week (NAW 2019) is an annual celebration of apprenticeships that brings the whole apprenticeship community together to celebrate the impact they have on individuals, employers and the economy.

National Careers Week aims to encourage companies to think about their employees' wellbeing and happiness and new research has asked British workers about the things they most want from their work.

The YouGov survey of 2,000 adults, commissioned by the Oxford Open Learning Trust, found that while money is predictably the biggest motivator behind career choice (64%), over half of the respondents cited working hours as an important factor (55%). With people striving for a healthy work-life balance, it is perhaps unsurprising that workers are looking for employment that fits in around their lifestyle and allows them enough time to themselves.

It is also encouraging to see ‘enjoyment’ listed as the joint third most considered aspect during the job search process. Finances will always be central to a lot of career changes, but half of Brits (50%) say they would follow their heart and look for jobs which align with their personal interests.

The top 10 most important factors when choosing a new job are:

1. Salary: 64%
2. Working hours: 55%
3. Location: 50%

5. Job security: 40%
6. Working environment: 37%
7. Opportunities for progression: 26%
8. Opportunities for training / learning a new skill: 23%
9. The opinions of my family / partner: 12%
10. Status: 9%

It appears that Brits are prepared to put the effort in for these new jobs, with nearly three in five UK adults (58%) saying they would consider training/retraining for a new career. This figure rises to around two thirds (66%) among current workers.

Dr Nick Smith, courses director and founder of the Oxford Open Learning Trust, said: “People often see the start of the year as a good opportunity to start afresh and plan for a brighter future.

“Moving jobs is one way of achieving a lifestyle shift and it’s really interesting to see the main reasons why people are looking to make such changes.

“While money is always going to be an important consideration, it is pleasing to see that the nation is looking after their own interests too, with things like location and enjoyment listed highly.”

The survey was commissioned to launch the Profession Picker tool, which is designed to help adults who are thinking of making a career change. Each year, the Oxford Open Learning Trust serves learners that might need an extra qualification such as a GCSE or A Level in order to get their desired job and start a new career.

Nearly 5,000 children have been allocated a secondary school place in Sandwell.

A record number of parents and carers have received their first choice of secondary school place for their children and 89% of parents have been given one of their top three choices.

Councillor Simon Hackett, cabinet member for children's services visited the site where new secondary school, West Bromwich Collegiate Academy is being built. He said: "We have given nearly 5,000 school places to children and more parents than ever have received their first choice of secondary school.

"In Sandwell we are making sure that more school places are available including building new schools like West Bromwich Collegiate Academy, due to open in September."

West Bromwich Collegiate Academy will open its doors to its first 175 pupils in September.

George Faux will be the Principal at West Bromwich Collegiate Academy. He said: “It's really exciting to be opening a brand new school here and the community have been amazingly supportive.

"There are 175 notifications going out to families to tell them they will be the first at West Bromwich Collegiate Academy. What will really make this a school community is these families and the staff coming together in this great building when it is finished in September."

Parents and carers will receive email notifications about their offered school place if they have applied online or a letter will be posted if they used the paper application form.

Adoption UK and a group of leading education experts are urging a radical rethink in the way schools are judged.

A new report published by the charity, 'Top of the Class' recommends that schools should be held to account for the way they support their most vulnerable students, and that school leaders need help to make fundamental changes.

Three quarters of adopted children have suffered significant trauma in their birth families such as abuse and neglect, which can have a lasting impact on their ability to learn and their mental and physical health. They are significantly more likely than their peers to be excluded from school, and to leave school with no qualifications. These children are the tip of the iceberg - up to half of all children in classrooms across the UK have had traumatic experiences such as family breakdown or parents with drug or alcohol problems and suffer similar barriers to learning.

Adoption UK’s Becky White, the report author and former teacher, said: “Many schools with stellar exam results do a very bad job for their most vulnerable pupils. No school should be rated outstanding unless it is outstanding for all its students. But in the current environment, it takes a very brave head teacher to invest as much in meeting the needs of the most vulnerable and complex students as they do in chasing exam results.

In a UK survey of teachers for this report, 60% of respondents told Adoption UK there had been no relevant training on the needs of children who have experienced trauma in their school in the past three years. In England, eight out of ten ‘designated teachers’ who responded to the survey - a role with responsibility for looked after and previously looked after children - received no additional resources, either in terms of funding or time, to help them do this work.

Amongst the contributors to the report are Mary Bousted, joint general secretary of the National Education Union and Jarlath O’Brien, teacher at a multi academy trust.

Mr O’Brien said: “Over the course of 18 years as a teacher I’ve learned, sometimes the hard way, how schools can hinder the chances of children who have experienced trauma. Supporting these children is a matter of education and support, not retribution and punishment.”

Ms Bousted said: “In some schools pupils are valued almost wholly for their academic attainment. Children who have had a tough start in life, for whatever reason, find it more difficult to get into these schools, and if they do, soon find that their personal needs are not being met.”

The English schools examining body OFSTED published its new draft inspections framework last week, which is now under public consultation. OFSTED has acknowledged that the current obsession with exam results is bad news for the most disadvantaged children.

However Adoption UK has some significant concerns about the new framework, including its approach to behaviour management.

Becky White said: “There are schools doing a wonderful job of making sure every child has an equal chance to fulfil their own potential, whatever that is. Some of the solutions are simple and affordable. But often what’s needed is wholesale reform of school policies, from foundational principles upwards. That takes courage, and schools inspectors and governments need to lead the way.”

Next week (March4-9) is National Careers Week, which celebrates career guidance and opportunities. People choose their career direction based on various different factors, but a new test means that they can now do so based on their memory type.

The Memory Matrix, created by The Oxford Open Learning Trust, puts adults to the test to determine which type of memory is their biggest strength and the potential careers that would be best suited to an individual's certain type of memory.

The online tool was launched after the Trust's research revealed that nine out of ten Brits feel having a good memory is important for their jobs.

The survey of over 1,000 workers found that those that are self-employed and teachers are the professionals that rate the importance of memory most highly for their job.

The top five professions that rate memory as important for their job:

• Self-employed (100%)
• Teacher (100%)
• IT (99%)
• Accounts (97%)
• Operational (97%)

Spatial memory refers to how well you can retain information that’s presented to you in a very short space of time. For this particular memory type, the information is presented through sensory means, such as sight, smell, sound, touch and taste. Ruth Sparkes explains that the following career choices lend themselves well to good spatial memory skills; architect, builder, sculptor, fashion designer, film director, makeup artist, chef, surveyor, pilot, driver, mechanic or carpenter.

Short term memory jobs need individuals to be able to absorb information quickly and have rapid recall. Police officers, barristers, doctors, pilots, waiters, bartenders, journalists and MPs all typically possess these traits.

Those that have a strong long term memory are much better at recalling and remembering information from the past. Often people working in these careers will have to refer to previous cases, earlier studies and remember rules and laws. Those with these traits should considering entering professions such as a solicitor, doctor, engineer, scientist, architect, lawyer, data scientist or civil servant.

Dr Nick Smith, courses director and founder of Oxford Open Learning Trust, said: “The results suggest an overwhelming majority of UK workers view memory ability as being important to their professional lives. It’s a known fact that people are happier when doing something they are good at and our Memory Matrix tool focuses on matching the strengths of memory types with different professions.

“It’s never too late to learn new skills or consider a career change and our memory tool gives people an idea of what they might be suited to if they’re thinking about a new challenge.”

To use the Memory Matrix tool login to: https://www.ool.co.uk/the-memory-matrix/