Could your career story help a young person forge their own path in childcare and early years?

For many of us, the path we’ve taken in our careers can often be traced back to the passions and talents of our childhood and teenage years. We’ve teamed up with Inspiring the Future to support you in illuminating this path for young people by sharing your career story and showing them how their early interests can lead the way to an exciting future in childcare and early years.

What is Inspiring the Future?

Inspiring the Future is the perfect volunteering programme for professionals wanting to give back. Run by the Education and Employers charity, Inspiring the Future connects workplace volunteers with schools and colleges to broaden children and young people’s horizons, raise their aspirations and increase their motivation to learn.

Research shows that children’s aspirations are directly linked to what they see (or don’t see) around them, but by volunteering with Inspiring the Future, you can help all young people to gain invaluable firsthand insight into the childcare and early years sector. It’s really flexible – take part in one or multiple activities throughout the school year and the impact you can make is undeniable:

“The volunteers opened my eyes to different areas of work, and other ways of getting there. It was inspiring to talk to real people who have reached career levels that I aspire to.” 14-year-old student

“Meeting the volunteers has given me courage to know that I can do lots of things.” 9-year-old pupil

“Realising that his passion could be a job was a real lightbulb moment.” teacher

How does it work?

As a volunteer, you’ll be connected with primary schools, secondary schools, and colleges through Inspiring the Future’s dedicated online platform. This enables you to indicate your activity preferences, search for volunteering opportunities and accept or decline invitations from schools.

You can:

  • Take part in local sessions in-person or virtual activities from wherever you’re based
  • Choose the types of activities that interest you such as career chats, CV support, mock interviews, speed networking and more

However you choose to volunteer, sharing your story with a young person is an incredibly rewarding experience:

“You will feel an enormous sense of achievement when one of the children says they want to follow your path. Being a role model to a young person is one of the best feelings ever.”

Alison, Inspiring the Future volunteer

Keen to get involved?

Getting started is easy, sign up via Inspiring the Future and inspire young people with the possibility of channelling their current skills and interests into an exciting future career.

Further reading

Jobs board

External Vacancies Internal Vacancies To advertise here, contact office@early-education.org.uk Organisation and multisite members may advertise vacancies for free as part of the membership package. Download Job advertisement

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