Future Bound

Future Bound is a 3-year skills development and employability programme. The programme is offered to Year 9s who are not fulfilling their potential in school or lack opportunities to progress their skills and confidence. Through a varied programme of activities, including outdoor activity days, workplace visits and career planning sessions, students work with a mentor to develop their understanding, careers knowledge and skills that will stand them in good stead for making positive decisions post-GCSE. Each session focuses on one or more essential skill. The students have the opportunity to learn about the skill, participate in an activity relating to the skill, understand how the skill will be useful to them in school and the workplace and finally, reflect on their skills development on Skills Builder Benchmark.

All the Future Bound sessions are associated with 1 or 2 essential skills and a relevant focus step. The session kicks off with a chance to 'Warm up the Skill' and learn more about what the skill is and how they can develop that skill. Students will get to assess how often they are able to use that skill at that level with their mentor.

The session will then move onto an activity related to the skill. For example, to learn about Teamwork and supporting others, the group goes Weaselling in the Peak District together. Throughout the session, the facilitators and mentors will use the Skills Builder language to consistently reinforce the learning.

At the end of the session, students are able to discuss with their mentor how they used or progressed the skill, how that could relate to school and their mentor's work life and, make an action plan to develop the step further in the future.

Whilst each session has 1-2 specific skills foci, opportunities will be taken to highlight the use of all the essential skills throughout sessions which feeds into students' self-reflections on Benchmark throughout the programme.

To find out more, please email katie.leather@endeavour.org.uk