Livery Education Conference 2019

The Renter Warden George Smith represented the Master at the Livery Education Conference held at Haberdashers' Hall on Friday, the 15th of March 2019

Renter joined representatives from 29 schools and 41 livery companies; the keynote speaker was the Lord Mayor Peter Estlin, The Lord Mayor spoke and presented on “shaping the city of tomorrow today.” The Lord Mayor touched on the 1st industrial revolution of 1784 when physical skills were needed, the 2nd industrial revolution of 1870 when cognitive skills were required, the 1912 recognition of I.Q. , 1964 E.Q. the 3rd of 1969 which required soft skills for computer work and the 4th industrial revolution in 2016 with its digital skills requirement.

Working in this 4th revolution will require the use of emotional intelligence, security, safety, literacy, and communication as all will be paramount to the new generation coming into the workforce. The new workforce will have to be resilient, flexible, and very curious to handle the jobs in 10 years that actually don’t exist yet. This raises the question of how education keeps pace with technology and how can business or livery help prepare children for the future? There is a focus on primary and secondary education but the skills they learn there will become a part of lifelong learning.

Mr. Brian Blanchard Past Master of the Builders Merchants spoke in depth about the importance of T levels or technical skills. Brian drove home the message that pupils should consider a career in construction as about 50% of university graduates are not finding work in their chosen field when leaving university.

During the breakout discussions between Livery and teachers, it became evident that the current curriculum is too restrictive; as our schools are judged by measured results; anything not measurable is not encouraged as it is not counted.

With teachers under time pressure, offers of extra curriculum events and time investment from outside organisations are often declined.

Teachers on our table would like the Livery to impress upon Government that the current curriculum is a constraint to pupils. A dialogue between the Livery movement and Government should be established to discuss how can schools best prepare students for tomorrow’s world of work and how much the Livery movement can help the students with work placement and apprenticeships with a view of building a range of skills sets as an alternative to a university degree.

Liz Goodwin who heads up the Livery Schools Link to closed out the conference we fully expect that Liz will be reaching out to all of us to see what we can do to help those coming into the workplace.