Sign up to show youngsters there is hope

ARCHBISHOP of Canterbury. Star of Homeland. Mayor of London. Nineteen British Prime Ministers. When the latest cohort of students had their first day at Eton this September, they will know their predecessors have succeeded in every field. They’ll know there’s no limit to what “people like them” can achieve.

Unfortunately, many other young people unwittingly place limits on their capabilities and ambitions based on the role models that they see around them – building their expectation around what they believe people from their background, their area and school have gone on to achieve.

This month everyday heroes from Sussex – lawyers, doctors, plumbers, policemen, entrepreneurs and web developers – will support their old state school or college in a scheme designed to change that perception. Future First works with state schools across Britain, including many across Sussex, like Warden Park School in Haywards Heath, Sussex Downs College in Eastbourne and Portslade Aldridge Community Academy in Brighton, to enable schools to harness the talents of alumni to motivate current students to academic success and career confidence.

Many of those schools will take part in Future First’s national campaign, Back to School Week, which aims to encourage everyone nationwide to give back to their old state school, perhaps as career role models, work experience providers, mentors or governors.

Everyone has talents and skills they can share with current students. Already, more than 90,000 people have signed up to the scheme. And ten million British people in jobs say they’d be prepared to do the same, but state schools have rarely asked them.

Alumni are invaluable as crucial, relatable role models. An absence of those can lead to self-fulfilling prophecies amongst young people. Those who don’t expect to succeed are less likely to even try to.

Our polling shows nearly 40% of state students don’t even know anyone in a job they want to do. Those pupils need to hear from people who have sat in the same chairs, maybe had the same teachers, and come out of the other side to find fulfilment and success.

And that is what they will hear during Back to School Week from October 13 to 17.

If you want to make a difference to your old school visit fut- urefirst.org.uk and sign up today

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