Week 5 kicked off with a mindfulness session delivered with Pret a Manger, that proved to be receptive amongst our student network. I hope this session resource (found on our YouTube channel, link at end of blog), can get lots more use from our community, as we take into consideration the impact that isolation is having on mental health.

I wanted to speak about this week’s Sutton Trust Report which states that: only 23% of pupils are reported to be taking part in live and recorded lessons online every day. However, pupils from middle class homes are much more likely to do so (30%), compared to working class pupils (16%). At private schools, 57% of secondary students have accessed online lessons every day, more than twice as likely as their counterparts in state schools. Read the full report here.

This is staggering data, yet, not too surprising. What I can add to this is some schools are nailing it, with 90%+ attendances to their lessons. A Harris Academy has been particularly successful with use of calling students in the week, having these important 1-1 conversations to hold the students to account on interacting like they would do on a normal school day.

However, it would seem this success isn’t shared across the board. Another state school to compare against, has not offered as much work or structure and students feel a bit lost. Conversely, one private school is even keeping their Year 13’s on a strict school day with regular hours, despite no exams taking place for these students.

This report has made me think about what we at Pathway CTM can be doing to support further students who might be from an underprivileged background. From next week, we are providing extra support to students who are on free school meals in year 11 or 12, (about to go into their final years of secondary education). With proactive calls and informal webinars set up to target students who might, so the stats say, be losing ground on their more privileged counterparts. I hope we can help close this gap!

We spoke about this initiative at our influencer webinar on Friday, where all supporting employer brands from this month’s content, came together to speak to 60 teachers and parents. I was impressed that 70% of these were teachers, giving up there time to invest further into their students. Aquinas in Manchester, St Thomas The Apostle in London and King John School in Essex to name a few engaged members, asking questions. Thanks to John, Allan and Linda respectively there for your continued work and support.

As you can see from the image of the week, The Co-op won top spot again on the number of attendees to their webinar. A fascinating session with Iain Ferguson, who spoke of his creation of the compostable carrier bag amongst other amazing science initiatives, highlighting STEM careers, specifically in retail. Students also learned how to volunteer and fundraise at Cancer Research UK, and further enhance their strengths with Cappfinity with more access to their amazing Lauren Scarlett, who has been coaching our students around their strengths this month.

Please do take the time to read some of our blogs that are coming out from our work experience students too. Krishna (who knows what her strengths are!), has kicked us off with an excellent piece with more to come each week from our students. Pathway, and our employer partners are doing all we can to reward students with work experiences for their efforts, positivity and engagement throughout our webinar series. It’s been awesome!

One of these blogs will be summarising the amazing insights we got from Olympian Gail Emms, who we interviewed last week. There were so many takeaways that we will turn it into a blog and send out to our network, alongside the recorded webinar which is on our YouTube channel – do take a look!

A final link to the UCAS webinar broadcasted over Easter. With Richard Garrett, Director of Policy at Ofqual, stating that ‘holistic judgement’ will be asked for from teachers on predicting grade outcomes for students. Having your teacher, plus sign off from another teacher (ideally head of department) and then finally, the Headteacher too – seems a robust process to guard against inaccurate grading. At 5minutes 30 seconds of the video link, Richard speaks about calculating grades using classwork, homework, assignment and mock results plus coursework and general progress will all be taken into account by teachers.

Thanks to the teachers who are working above and beyond. We have seen a spike in students registering on the Pathway Programme since returning from Easter holidays. Now it’s about resting up for all of us at Pathway CTM, and we go again Monday!

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