This year’s Jersey’s Annual Skills & Employability Conference (JASEC) focuses on ‘Transitions to Employment’ aiming to connect education, learners and employers together to look at innovative projects and new ideas that can help young people and adults transition into the workplace better in the future.
The conference is broadcast on Skills Jersey YouTube channel with live workshops available for public to join in and view. We encourage you to join some of our sessions, take part in discussion and provide us with your views and thoughts.
Our aim
At the heart of this year’s conference we will be focusing on:
- Discuss a broad range of initiatives to enhance employability skills: to ensure a higher success of positive destinations for learners
- Highlight employability skills provided within the curriculum: to allow clear identification of which subjects strengthen and progress an individual into sectors
- Create learning pathway maps for careers in industry sectors: to allow clear identification of careers and how to transition into or progress through them
- Discuss learnings from Covid-19 in education and employment settings: Looking at what we can do better to carry on as normal and what has been beneficial
- Pledges: At the end of the week, we ask industry and academics to pledge actions to support learners with transitions to employment in Jersey
Conference Schedule
Monday 5 July
9.30am Opening speech - Mark Rogers, Director General, Children, Young People, Education and Skills, Government of Jersey
9.45am Preparing for the future of work - Olly Newton, Executive Director at Edge Foundation explores the latest evidence and international examples that look at the changing future of work and how students, parents, schools, colleges and employers can all play their part to Preparing for the future of work help young people prepare for the careers of the future.
10am Investing in the future of public services - The States Employment board is the largest employer on the Island covering functions of the Government, Non-ministerial Departments and the States of Jersey Police. The recently launched People Strategy setting out an investment in the future of public services. At the heart of this strategy is our future talent, attracted from the island and investing in the future careers for our population. In this section Mark Grimley, the Group Director for People and Corporate Services will set out the range of opportunities, from work experience, internships, entry careers and fast track schemes will provide an exciting career opportunity for those entering into employment. With over 50 professional careers, the Government has something for every interest, skill and talent.
10.30am Creating Opportunities and Sharing Experiences - Matt Dingle, Teaching and Learning Coordinator at Mont a L'Abbe School, talks about creating exciting career opportunities for Mont a L’Abbe learners and how upskilling learners gives the best outcomes for getting a job once they leave school.
10.45am Jersey Employment Trust: Pathways to employment for 14 to 21 year olds - This talk will give an overview of the service provided by Jersey Employment Trust. Simon Jones and Melissa Oxenham, Employment Coordinators at Jersey Employment Trust will explain the services approach to supporting young people with a wide range of barriers into employment, our strategies and the challenges that we face with sourcing diverse employment prospects.
11am Not in Employment Education or Training: How Highlands College is providing a NEET solution - Dreena Collins, Assistant Principal for Students and Core Learning at Highlands College, will be discussing the forthcoming provision devised by Highlands College to meet the needs of young people who are NEET (not in employment, education, or training), following a successful fiscal stimulus funding bid. This is a unique and creative offer on island, planned to commence in autumn 2021. The programme aims to target skills gaps to support some of our most vulnerable young people. Listen in to learn how the College plan to address this demographic group, and how others can support the initiative.
11.15am Supporting young people and learners to transition to employment - Skills Jersey's Careers Guidance team give an insight into the services provided at Skills Jersey and offer their knowledge and experience on ways industry can make a difference to people of all ages looking to transitions to employment.
11.30am The future international skills curriculum in Jersey – Lee Johnson, Assistant Principal for Curriculum and Quality at Highlands College discusses how and why Highlands College is reforming it’s post 16 vocational curriculum. Are we preparing young people for the future? Is our English curriculum still the best option for us? What could a future curriculum look like? Where would we start?
12pm Case study: Jersey Electricity’s apprenticeship programme - Dave Crossland, Head of Organisation Development at Jersey Electricity plc
12.15pm Case study: Jersey’s Nursing Degree Programme - Dr Hazel McWhinnie, Senior Lecturer, Programme Leader Pre-Registration Nursing at Heath and Community Services Education Department
Wednesday 7 July
Transitions to employment - Employer workshop: An open discussion to talk about the opportunities for islanders and young people transitioning to employment. Why engaging with young people and learners in areas such as Trident work experience, work placement, and apprenticeships is so important.
Thursday 8 July
Transitions to employment - Student workshop: An open discussion with students on their experience of transitioning into employment via various educational and non educational routes and how best we can support young learners in future.
Friday 9 July
We invite education and industry to support the weeks conference by offering their own pledges on how they will be supporting islanders to better transition to employment in future.
Speakers
Mark Rogers, Director General, Children, Young People, Education and Skills, Government of Jersey
Mark has extensive leadership experience across education, local and national government. He has been a teacher and head teacher in a variety of special schools between 1985 and 2001.
Subsequently, in local government, he became a Director of Children’s Services (Solihull MBC 2006-09) and twice a Chief Executive (Solihull MBC 2007-14 and Birmingham CC 2014-17). Following 15 months of consultancy work with KPMG and CollaborateCIC, in June 2018 Mark became Director General for Children, Young People, Education and Skills for Government of Jersey.
His core focus on the safeguarding, health and wellbeing of children, young people and families has been extensively augmented through leadership, including extensive thought leadership, in areas as diverse as devolution, inclusive growth, health and social care integration, organisational development, and system leadership and redesign.
Latterly, in the West Midlands, Mark led on some of the largest-scale improvement and change programmes anywhere in the country in the high-profile areas of combined authorities, sustainability and transformation planning, alternative delivery models for children’s services and organisational and partnership culture change.
In Jersey he is overseeing the response to the Independent Jersey Care Inquiry as well as leading the improvement and redesign of services to children and families.
Olly Newtson, Executive Director, Edge Foundation
Olly oversees Edge’s work on research, policy and Edge Future Learning. He is passionate about connecting researchers, policy makers and practitioners to learn from each other.
Olly chairs several of Edge’s networks and often speaks at events – feel free to email him or connect on Twitter @UkEdgePolicy if you would like to start a conversation.
Before Edge, he spent ten years with the Department for Education, most recently as Head of Apprenticeship Strategy. Olly is based in Sheffield where he is a governor and Enterprise Adviser for Firth Park Academy and volunteers with the Scout Association.
Mark Grimley, Group Director for People and Corporate Services, Government of Jersey
Mark joined the Government of Jersey in 2019 with 15 years of senior human resources experience under his belt across public, private and third sectors. He has led award-winning teams particularly recognised for diversity and inclusion, talent programmes and technology implementations.
He was named as one of the UK's most influential HR directors by HR Magazine in 2019. In Jersey he has launched the new people strategy for public services focussing on developing talent for the future and making public services the place for careers of the future.
Lee Johnson - Assistant Principal for Curriculum and Quality, Highlands College
Originally from South Yorkshire Lee has lived and worked in Jersey for four years, and currently works within the Senior Leadership Team at Highlands College. His background is in further education leadership and curriculum development. Highlights include the UK’s first Media apprenticeship framework developed in partnership with the BBC in Manchester, The UK’s first photojournalism apprenticeship in partnership with the National Council for the Training of Journalists and the multiple award winning creative learning company Norton Creative in Sheffield.
Dreena Collins – Assistant Principal for Students and Core Learning, Highlands College
Dreena Collins was born and raised in Jersey, and currently works within the Senior Leadership Team at Highlands College. She has a background in Special Educational Needs and Inclusive practice and is a qualified and experienced English teacher. She has a passion for education, especially for those who might ordinarily feel disenfranchised from learning. From September 2021, she will be taking up a post with The Jersey Recovery College (Mental Health charity).
Matt Dingle, Teaching and Learning Coordinator at Mont a L'Abbe School and member of the Senior Leadership Team
Matt has worked at Mont a L'Abbe School for over for 17 years, beginning his days as a Teaching Assistant. He went on to qualify as a teacher and attained a teaching post at the wonderful, Mont a L'Abbe School.
Mont a L'Abbe is an amazing place to work, with no day ever the same. He is currently working within the schools Phase 4 and forging strong links with Skills Jersey. Together Mont a L'Abbe School and Skills Jersey are working towards facilitating meaningful careers education sessions from Upper Phase 2 to Phase 5. Culminating with exciting work placements that will upskill learners and give them the best outcomes in getting a job once they leave Mont a L'Abbe School.
Simon Jones, Employment Coordinator at Jersey Employment Trust
I have been working for JET for the past 11 years solely focusing on the younger clients of the service. Into my role I have bought my previous experiences of working in education and working for the Jersey youth service. Thought-out this long period of time the employment landscape has changed but the challenge of getting young people into their first job remains, this is what drives me to help and support young people.
Melissa Oxenham, Employment Coordinator at Jersey Employment Trust
I work alongside Simon Jones at Jersey Employment Trust in the Transition Service working with young people aged between 14- 21 years old. I have been working at Jersey Employment Trust for nearly two years now. Every day at work is such a different day and we are lucky we get to work with so many diverse young people.
Dave Crossland, Head of Organisation Development at Jersey Electricity plc
Dave Crossland is Head of Organisation Development at Jersey Electricity, looking after recruitment, skills and personal development, and diversity and inclusion. With over 15 years’ experience in HR and Learning and Development roles across a number of sectors.
Dave’s interest are in leadership development and the future of work. He has written papers on the future of work following the COVID pandemic and is a fully qualified executive coach, able to assist employees in exploring career options and next steps.
Dr Hazel McWhinnie (PhD, MSc, PGCE, BA, Dip HE, RN, RNT) Senior Lecturer, Programme Leader Pre-Registration Nursing at Heath and Community Services Education Department
Dr Hazel McWhinnie (PhD, MSc, PGCE, BA, Dip HE, RN, RNT) is a Senior Lecturer within the Health and Community Services Education Department, the Programme Leader for Pre-Registration Nursing and a Team Jersey Lead.
Hazel has been a registered nurse for over 20 years and has worked in a variety of hospitals, specialising in critical care nursing.
Hazel leads on the Bachelor of Nursing undergraduate programmes on island and also the clinical examination skills and diagnostics modules for the MSc Advanced Practice.
Hazel's research interests focus on managing the complexities of the older adult with multiple co-morbidities and polypharmacy, the student experience and self-efficacy as an indicator of knowledge and clinical competence