South Lanarkshire Council has achieved the school leaver destinations target and exceeded the Scottish Government average for the sixth year in a row.
At the Education Resources Committee on September 6, elected members heard of the council’s success in exceeding national targets for South Lanarkshire school leavers achieving post-school destinations.
This has been achieved through a range of programmes offered by the council’s Youth Employability Service.
The council’s Youth Employability Service has a strategic and operational remit to support the tracking of young people’s post-school destinations, and SLC achieved 96.2 per cent in the most recent figures from 2020/2021 compared to the Scottish average of 95.5 per cent.
The Youth Employability Service supports young people at school in the senior phase and post-school up to the age of 19 to develop the skills, experiences and qualifications to help them progress to positive and sustained post school destinations.
The service provides work-based curriculum options for young people in the senior phase which are: GradU8, Grad8 Work Experience and Foundation Apprenticeships.
GradU8 is a work-based learning programme that gives young people the chance to experience a college learning environment and achieve vocational qualifications.
The programme is timetabled as a senior-phase option choice across all South Lanarkshire schools with young people attending one-day-a-week during the autumn and spring terms. Young people can choose one of 12 subjects.
It runs across different South Lanarkshire localities on different days at varying venues. Cambuslang, Rutherglen and Uddingston pupils attend South Lanarkshire College and Glasgow Kelvin College on a Monday, East Kilbride and Strathaven pupils attend South Lanarkshire College and Glasgow Kelvin College on a Friday, Clydesdale pupils go to New College Lanarkshire on a Monday and Hamilton pupils attend New College Lanarkshire on a Friday.
The GradU8 work experience programme was developed as part of the Education Learning Recovery and Renewal programme to provide an additional work-based option in the senior phase for young people returning to school after the period of significant disruption due to COVID-19.
It was launched in October last year with 62 young people matched to work placements which they went to one day a week.
Work placements were identified with the council and its partners and local employers and included: administration, hairdressing, beauty, leisure, construction, mechanics, early years, plumbing, golf, social care, grounds and stables.
Following the pilot, a further roll-out is now underway for the 2022/23 academic year with 100 places available to schools
Foundation Apprenticeships (FAs) are a national senior phase option, funded by Skills Development Scotland and designed to allow young people to gain valuable, real-world work experience and access work-based learning while they are still at school.
During the 2021/22 academic year 331 young people participated in FA level 6s, covering sectors such as accountancy, business skills, creative and digital media, children and young people and healthcare.
There are also targeted programmes for young people who are identified as requiring support to progress to a positive destination; those include: winter and summer leaver programmes, Aspire keywork support and AspireWorks.
Across all youth employability programmes, young people are linked to vocational development workers who provide individual targeted support to encourage engagement and support destination planning.
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