Supporters
What is Spark Northumberland?
Spark Northumberland is a curriculum-led careers platform bringing local employers into primary classrooms across the county. Through short, child-friendly videos filmed on site, teachers can bring the world of work into lessons mapped to what children are already studying.
Developed by Connect Northumberland and Spark Futures, it links classroom learning to real workplaces through videos filmed with Northumberland employers. Spark is part of a range of engagement opportunities available to schools in Northumberland with the employer community, co-created with education and using the latest research.
What to expect
The Spark Northumberland employer videos bring the world of work directly into the classroom. Pupils meet real people from businesses and organisations across Northumberland and beyond, hearing first-hand about their roles, the work they do, the pathways they followed and the skills they use every day. By connecting curriculum learning with authentic workplaces, the videos help children understand why what they learn in school matters, broaden their horizons and inspire them to imagine future careers they may never have considered.
Meet Steven and Kim. These two films offer a glimpse of the wide range of people, careers and workplaces featured throughout the Spark Northumberland library, helping children connect classroom learning with the exciting opportunities that exist across Northumberland and beyond.
Steven is a team captain at his workplace who makes sure everyone does their jobs brilliantly, wears their safety gear, and most importantly, gets home safely to their families at the end of the day.
Kim works as a press brake operator and a welder, where she uses machines to bend metal into specific shapes and joins the pieces together to build large finished project
Why it matters
Career ideas form before the age of 11.
Most children in Northumberland have little visibility of the employers and opportunities that exist on their doorstep. Without that visibility, young people leave the county and do not come back.
The talent pipeline that our businesses depend on gets thinner every year. Showing relatable people doing real jobs builds aspiration, confidence and awareness in young people at exactly the age when those ideas are forming.
Spark changes that. Your business, your people and your jobs, visible to every primary school child in the county.
This is Northumberland’s employer community taking action.
The next generation deserves better. We have a collective responsibility to show the future workforce the opportunities we have in the county and help strengthen Northumberland’s long term talent pipeline.
Who is involved?
These are the organisations bringing Spark Northumberland to you. If you would like to benefit from the platform as an educational establishment please get in touch with the team.
