What a fantastic end to a HUGE project! TVCA funded us for 30 events here at The Staiths, the amazing new Headquarters for the fantastic local logistics company AV Dawson. Approximately 1600 children from a fifth of primary schools in the Tees Valley have taken part in our World of Work days exploring a range of businesses across the Tees Valley. On top of the TVCA funded events we ran in schools earlier in the year, we have had a huge impact on developing cultural capital, a sense of agency and a better understanding of what the world of work looks like. Research, and our experience, strongly indicates that this will lead to more children being successful both in school and later in life.

Today we had the fantastic Whitecliffe Primary from the Northern Education Trust who came and showed fantastic teamwork and communication skills to learn how to code Dash using our set of iPads. We also toured the building to show the children what a real workplace looks like and staff as usual were brilliant at chatting with the children, it is such a great ethos here and that will have an impact on children’s impressions of ‘going to work’.

After a brief ‘virtual tour’ of the Tees Valley the children then explored our interactive map of businesses and again used the iPads to code and record what they had learned.

A fantastic group of children, two lovely teaching staff and almost a tear in our eyes as we waved goodbye to a relentless but highly impactful series of events. Pics from today below as well as snippets from their work made into a movie.