Line Of High School Students Wearing Uniform Sitting At Desk In Classroom

Get involved with the Greater Manchester Careers Community of Practice


How can businesses and industry help? 

The Careers team are always looking for volunteers from the world of work to support careers education in schools and colleges. 

There are many benefits for the volunteers as well as their organisation, including: 

  • Connect your organisation to meaningful volunteering opportunities across GM. 
  • Build a long-lasting connection to an institution. 
  • Connect your organisation to the wider Education, Skills and Work ecosystem throughout GM. 
  • Raise awareness and promote opportunities in your organisation and industry. 
  • Connect to a large support network of businesses and industry professionals. 

We need people willing to engage young people with their work and their career journey. For instance, this could be by: 

1. Being an Enterprise Advisers - Use your industry expertise and connections to volunteer to be an Enterprise Adviser, supporting a school/college to develop a sustainable careers programme with the local labour market and young people at its heart. You will join a network of over 200 Enterprise Advisers who are making a positive impact on the local community and young people. 

2. Taking part in Meet your Future - Meet Your Future is our successful experience of the workplace campaign. Meet Your Future offers your organisation a chance to de-mystify the workplace to young people and provide them with an insight into the types of jobs that people do within your organisation/sector. You can host a Workplace Safari, which involves a group of students visiting a real workplace for either a full day or part day. Hosting a Workplace Safari provides a great opportunity to engage with your staff through a rewarding volunteering opportunity that takes place at work, but it also helps to develop your talent pipeline.

3. Providing digital content for GMACS (external website) - The Greater Manchester Apprenticeship and Careers Service (GMACS) is a Mayoral supported platform, a ‘one-stop-shop' of information and tools to support Greater Manchester’s young people in their plans for their future. We are looking to build our resource bank for young people, schools, and colleges. This is an opportunity to provide videos, insights, challenges, and opportunities to highlight your organisation to young people across Greater Manchester. 

Primary Careers Pilot Community of Practice 

We are currently running the ‘Start Small; Dream Big’ primary careers programme, a project delivered in partnership with the Careers and Enterprise Company.  The pilot sits within our Careers Community of Practice expansion and we are thrilled to be working with a group of 150 primary schools testing out a primary model across Greater Manchester. 

The goal of the ‘Start Small; Dream Big’ pilot is to encourage children from disadvantaged backgrounds to think big about their future careers, challenge early stereotypes and raise awareness of future opportunities and pathways.  The pilot targets primary schools in Education Investment Areas and those with above 23% Free School Meal, and wider disadvantage. 

This pilot gives eligible schools the opportunity to be part of an innovative national programme of activity and research, influencing and shaping future policy decisions on primary career-related learning. Through participation in this programme, career-related learning and skills development will become embedded into curriculum teaching, leading to an enhanced curriculum that will positively impact careers related learning outcomes across the whole school.   Children will benefit from encounters with employers and parents/guardians will be provided with careers information and guidance.  

If your school would like to find out more about the pilot GM Primary Careers Community of Practice, please get in touch with our Primary Careers Programme Pilot Team. 

To get involved

If you would like to get involved in the GM Careers Community of Practice or have any questions, please email us at gmcacareershub@greatermanchester-ca.gov.uk. We endeavour to respond to all enquiries within 10 working days.