Adele Oates is Future SectorsManager at The Prince’s Trust, the UK’s leading youth charity. In this blog,she discusses the importance of promoting digital skills and providingenrichment digital and tech opportunities within schools and education centresacross the UK.
Digital and technology skills areincreasingly part of everyday life, and are more and more essential toproductivity in the workplace. Employers are demanding workers who areexperienced and capable with these skills, however, the workforce is strugglingto keep up: ‘The Learning & Work Institute has concluded that the UK isheading towards a “catastrophic” digital skills shortage. It reports that thenumber of young people taking IT skills at GCSE has fallen by 40% since 2015. Italso found fewer than half of UK employers believed their newest recruits fromeducation had the necessary advanced digital skills. However, 60% of businessesexpected to become increasingly reliant on such abilities over the next fiveyears.’(*) It is clear that collectively, there is a lot of work to be done inboth upskilling our current and future workforces to be properly equipped forthe evolving digital age.
The provision of digital trainingand support is now fundamental for a young person’s future life chances. ThePrince’s Trust is responding by ensuring that our digital skills pathway isboth accessible and ambitious to meet the needs of our young people and thewider economy.
One of the ways we are tacklingthis challenge is through our Bridging the App enrichment sessions whichThe Prince’s Trust have developed in partnership with Apple, targeting youngpeople aged 11-19 across the UK. Delivered through our Achieve education programme(**), the sessions aim to improve participant’s digital skills – andunderstanding of coding in particular – as well as key soft skills such asproblem solving and creative thinking. As with all of our future skillsprovision we are focused on engaging with a diverse range of young people,particularly young women, young people from black, Asian and minority ethnicbackgrounds and young people who live in the top 20% areas of multipledeprivation nationally.
Following a successful pilot in 2021the delivery of the sessions has now been expanded to cover six schools andcentres across Manchester in 2023. The sessions also compliment the Digital Skillsmodule of the Achieve Curriculum and can contribute towards elements of the Prince’sTrust Personal Development & Employability Qualification (***) young peoplework towards through the Achieve programme.
Speaking about her experience ofdelivering Bridging the App within schools and education centres in Manchester,Prince’s Trust Youth Development Lead Emma Seasman shared her key takeawaysfrom the sessions:
“Due to the Bridging the App programme having varying activities within it, wefound that young people engaged with it positively, as there was an enjoyableactivity for most. Some young people were more drawn to the creativity of appdesign, whereas others enjoyed the challenge of learning to code a game. Forsome young people it was also a challenge and a curiosity to utilise Appleproducts and iOS as most schools we found had Android products, so thispresented a new element to many students. One of the skills we found that challenged young people the most was problemsolving. Elements of the programme encourage young people to attempt self-helpmultiple times utilising different strategies, one of them being to completelystart again on their work for that section. Some young people struggled withthis aspect, and after one attempt wanted to be shown how to complete thesection. With encouragement however, most were able to build resilience andunderstand to some extent that getting something incorrect or having multipleattempts at a task is okay, again expanding their self-capabilities andconfidence.
We have had a really positive response from young peoplefrom across a variety of backgrounds and settings, including young people withadditional needs and not in mainstream education. To some, they love thesessions because they already have an interest in coding or app design and wantto further that knowledge. Other young people don’t really have a knowledge ofeither coding or app design, and some may find it scary or beyond their reach.However, because of how accessible the programme is, particularly the ‘Learningto Code 1’ app we have found it massively increases their confidence and by theend of the session app design, coding and even a career within these areasfeels not so unreachable!”
Following the successful launch ofBridging the App in Manchester we are looking forward to seeing what thenext year of our partnership with Apple brings. Having seen the hugely positiveimpact that early digital skills training can provide it is vital that we actnow to ensure today’s young people are equipped and ready for the digital worldthey will be moving into and are given the opportunity to aspire to and pursuevarious digital and tech career paths early on.
For more information about thefuture sectors work of The Prince’s Trust please get in touch with us at: hello@princes-trust.org.uk orvisit our website:
Confidence, courses, careers | ThePrince's Trust (princes-trust.org.uk)
**The Prince’s Trust Achieve education programme
***The Prince’s Trust Personal Development and EmployabilitySkills (PDE)qualification
