Today Durham Education Business Partnership achieved the Award for Education Business Excellence.
The Award is run by the Institute for Education Business Excellence and accredits organisations to the Department for Children, Schools and Families’ National Standard for Education Business Partnership Organisations (May 2008). It recognises the continued efforts and high standards achieved by Durham EBP in its ongoing work connecting education and the world of work for the benefit of young people in the area.
Durham Education Business Partnership promotes links between schools and local businesses in County Durham. This is achieved by producing and facilitating a range of high quality work related learning, work experience and enterprise programmes to enrich the education of students and to enhance their employability skills. The EBP works with nearly 4500 companies and 350 volunteers to support these programmes offering 20,600 students learning opportunities each academic year.
Anne Gibbs, Manager of Durham Education Business Partnership commented “We are thrilled to be one of the first EBPs to be accredited with the Award for Education Business Excellence. It is very rewarding to be recognised for the continuing effort and hard work staff put in to improve the learning experiences of young people in County Durham. Thanks must also go to local employers who are key to the success of this achievement and provide invaluable support to the EBP. We are very proud of the services Durham EBP provides and we look forward to helping many more young people prepare for their future, in the years to come.
Posted in The Work Place on Monday, October 5th, 2009
Bannatyne’s Bright Sparks Set Final Alight
An enterprising competition, organised by Durham EBP, aimed at developing Darlington school pupils’ communication and decision making skills, reached its final last week, to determine the winning team.
Editor of the Northern Echo, Peter Baron, hosted the event. Judges who included multi-millionaire entrepreneur Duncan Bannatyne, awarded pupils from Darlington Education Village and their idea to create tailor-made wildlife gardens for companies, and for the £1,000 prize! Pupils made bird boxes and other furniture for gardens on site and are using profits from the venture to fund a sensory garden for special needs pupils at the school.
The competition final, involving nine schools was the culmination of months of work by the pupils from Education Village, Hurworth House, Carmel, Hurworth, Hummersknott, Eastbourne, Branksome, Longfield and Polam Hall.
Each school created a business idea and business plan before being grilled on their ideas by the Dragon’s Den-style judging panel.
David Heaton, chairman of Darlington 14-19 Partnership said: “Last year was successful but this year, we have taken a quantum leap forward.”
The final was held at the Dolphin Centre in Darlington on Monday 29 June 2009.
Posted in Learning, The Work Place on Monday, July 6th, 2009
A strong field of students from local schools battled it out to become the Sculpture Competition Champions, earlier today at The Work Place.
The competition was held as part of the In Our Image project, the 16 metre high gigantic head and shoulders sculpture recently put into its permanent home at the Heighington Lane West section of Aycliffe Business Park to celebrate Newton Aycliffe’s industrial heritage and symbolise regeneration.
Newton Aycliffe based Aycliffe Fabrications constructed the sculpture and Managing Director Dave Spensley (pictured to the right together with the scale model of the In Our Image head) has maintained his involvement as the whole practical journey of the fabrication process has been created into an education programme that has been enjoyed by over 700 young people from 45 local schools and colleges.
Only the strongest teams made it through and the one day competition final involved each school designing their own scale model based on a brief given to all students. The judging criteria to decide on the winning team involved judges the teams on:
- How well they worked together as a team
- The accuracy of their scale model
- Talking about the design and how it related to they school
- Sustainability considerations
- Appropriateness of the model
The project has provided a unique opportunity for them to see first-hand the fascinating creative aspects of engineering with an aim of encouraging more young people into considering a career in engineering.
The competition was close but Tanfield School, Specialist College of Science and Engineering pipped the others to the post to become the overall champions. Well done to all involved, a hard earned but well deserved win!
Posted in Learning, The Work Place on Friday, June 26th, 2009
The Northumbrian Association’s Hotspur Award
Jane Ritchie’s outstanding generosity after using her multi-million pound inheritance to build The Work Place has once again been recognised by winning The Northumbrian Association’s Hotspur Award.
This is just the latest of a number of awards Jane has received since creating the centre for vocational learning. She was told of the award during the association’s recent annual dinner held at the House of Commons. The award will be presented to her in October, which was last year won by Sir Bobby Robson and Anthony Sargent of the Sage.
Posted in The Work Place on Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009