Partnerships & Links

The Industrial Careers Foundation is a non-profit making organisation that since 1986 has worked at finding exciting ways to nuture and develop the key managerial and enterprise skills of the work force of the future. To achieve our aim we have over the years worked with many sister organisations across the UK. We recognise the benefits that working in partnership with like-minded organisations can bring, in particular to our ultimate customers - the young people of today.

We work continuously to foster closer working relationships with those organisations where a natural synergy exists between them and the ICF.

CLICK ON THE NAME to go to the WEBSITE you want.

In particular the ICF recommends:

The organisation formed by Andy Clayton and Andy Dixon to carry on the work of the ICF. They continue to run 1-3 day events on the Challenge of Management and Challenge of Enterprise for years 10-13 students in schools and colleges. They will also arrange for schools to use an enterprise business game to be used in lessons in curriculum time. They are authorised to use all our previous copyrighted material including UNISIMII. We warmly support their work.

Otherwise we give you a selection of the many other organisations that provide work-related learning (WRL) support for schools and colleges. IT IS IMPORTANT to state that the summary below represents very much a personal view and you are advised to check the individual website of any organisation to get the correct detail. :

A charity which works in London to help disabled children into work experience placements.

This Trust aims to encourage and stimulate high ability 15-16 year old students to take up engineering or technological careers by offering scholarships to those about to start A levels. It is supported by some key charities and major employers. It awarded 198 scholarships (£1800 each) over two years in 2007. They aim to put a sponsor against each scholarship.

There is now a close link between the ICF and Arkwright in that we have agreed to sponsor a total of eighteen ICF scholarships over the next three years.

This educational charity is a recognised awarding body in qualifications that result from activity-based curriculum work in such areas as key skills, negotiation and teamwork.

The Network for Accrediting Young Peoples Achievement was formed in 1998 by the National Youth agency, whose website hosts this website. Its remit is to bring together the wide range of organisations that manage the delivery of award programmes in non-formal education settings in order to promote the value of these awards in contributing to the learning and achievements of your people.

BA (The British Association for the Advancement of Science) have a "Young People's Programme" to encourage young students to motivate them to look more seriously and enjoy the challenge of science. As part of their programme, they promote the CREST awards for projects undertaken in science or technology. These projects are undertaken within school time under the guidance of mentors from outside the school. Outstanding projects are chosen for display at the National BACREST fair.

This is an organisation that claims to work with member companies to develop their own education programmes increase student skills in literacy and numeracy and ultimately their employability. They will advise schools on whom to approach to get help.

This is set up to help businesses, particularly in a start-up mode. Their influence in the education process is low but they do have local regional officers.

Business Review is an excellent quarterly magazine published by Philip Allan Updates. It is designed to help young students in business and economics understand more clearly modern issues in their field of study. It also carries helpful advice in tackling examination questions. I have found it a most useful resource for relevant case studies to use in management training. It is warmly recommended.

CSV have some useful materials to support schools in their teaching resources for the citizenship curriculum. The organisation is dedicated to providing opportunities for young people to volunteer their services in the wider community.

This project, sponsored by the Deutsche Bank and the Trident Trust invites schools to bid for anything between £100 and £1500 to fund a community project or social enterprise scheme.

The organisation formed by Andy Clayton and Andy Dixon to carry on the work of the ICF. They continue to run 1-3 day events on the Challenge of Management and Challenge of Enterprise for years 10-13 students in schools and colleges. They will also arrange for schools to use an enterprise business game to be used in lessons in curriculum time. They are authorised to use all our previous copyrighted material including UNISIMII. We warmly support their work.

Connexions replaced the old careers services for young people and are locally based. They provide advisers who visit schools and carry out 1:1 interviews with students in years 10 and 11. The website is a direct resource for students and teachers run by the DfES.

This site will take you to the personal website of Geoff Shaw, the Company Secretary and founder of the ICF. His company name is Courtenay Conferences, which is registered as a Conference and Training Agency. His speciality is, of course, the management training of young people but his skills have also been used commercially for helping non-financial managers understand the world of finance and he designs beskope programmes in teamwork for groups of staff, particularly those involved in sales and marketing.

CRAC has been over 35 years in the business of education-business liaison and has good experience in the process of lifelong learning and career development. They organise Insight courses for university undergraduates and school students amongst their many activities and they also run courses for teachers in enterprise. Their research arm has high credibility in the careers field.

This is the official DfES website.

This is a free web-based resource for education in personal finance and is accredited by pfeg. It is designed to help students with their knowledge, understanding and skills of financial capability. It includes self-fill exercises and case studies.

This is a member organisation for teachers who are involved in the teaching of business and economics. It has a regular magazine and bulletins and it runs training events for its members.

This is a comprehensive teacher-based website run by the DfES.

This is a business-led partnership backed by government. They claim to promote opportunities for young people and to provide information on events, business ambassadors, resources and research in the enterprise field. They seem now to solely promote an enterprise week every year in November by encouraging entries to a competition for each part of the educational sector.

A website run by the South East Development Agency concerning enterprise in the SE of England.

GAP organises gap year placements for those leaving school before they enter university.

HTI is an independent charity launched in 1986 and sponsored by government charged with working with businesses, schools and universities and government to raising standards in leadership and management in education. They work with teachers in schools by running a leadership centre at the University of Warwick in Coventry and in the process offer teachers a professional development programme.

That's US!

ISCO offers careers advice to member school and undergraduate students who have attended independent schools. They also organise courses for students and staff and promote week-long courses for students at their member companies.

This is an organisation devoted to arranging structured visits for individuals and small groups. Since 1999 they claim to have helped over 100,000 pupils in this way with some 398 schools.

The ICAEW will attend careers fairs and will host presentation events. They say that they will organise a business game (Blips) and provide case study scenarios.

LEACAN offers a WRL toolkit to help schools deliver work-related learning. Price £100.

This newly formed organisation took over in LSDA its work in education and training. It is funded by DfES, QIA and LSC to support learning providers in a variety of ways. Particularly pertinent to schools are its programmes to train subject learning coaches, advice on key skills programmes, support for the vocational curriculum 14-19, change and skills for life. See also www.vocationallearning.org.uk.

LSAS is an on-line resource which acts as a matchmaker between London artists and schools which want to set up art-related projects. It is highly recommended, as this field is not well represented on the Net.

The MWEW provides assignments in science and business studies for students to complete during work experience placements. Photocopy masters can be down loaded from the teacher’s area of the site. The organisation is funded by the LSC.

The MBA is a business communications agency formed specifically to help companies to make the best use of resources allocated to helping schools. The website contains some excellent information on what might be useful for work-related learning. They provide a detailed written programme (also see www.wrl.org.uk)

The aim of pfeg is to help teachers develop financial capability in young people. It provides networking opportunities and resources, which include free download case studies. It appears to be well-funded and supported.

Trust, sponsored by the Prince of Wales, dedicated to help young people develop their potential either in a project or community work or a new business. They sponsor XL clubs in schools and provide a business adviser to give the students help in the organisation of such a club.

This is the official graduate careers organisation offering opportunities in jobs, further courses and research. It links with University Careers Services and publishes a monthly magazine free to undergraduates.

The QCA is responsible to the government for the implementation and development concerning the curriculum in schools and colleges. On this website you will find the requirements for enterprise education for KS4. The site does not seem to have been updated since 2004!

The QIA is yet another government quango charged with the task to develop diplomas for those teaching and coaching functional vocational skills within the 14-19 curriculum.

This is a lively website where people exchange great ideas on small business. It indicates how to get the idea off the ground and to put a formal business plan together to have a chance to succeed.

This is an independent membership (free) organisation that aims to raise, develop and maintain an awareness of issues affecting young people in rural areas. It runs an annual conference in November.

This is one of a set of regional offices covering the whole of the UK. The West Yorkshire one seems more active than many of the others. Setpoint’s mission, which is government sponsored, is to provide innovation, development and partnership services for education and business to continually improve science, technology, engineering and mathematical qualifications (STEM), skills and employability. Its main way of doing this is to help by providing “ambassadors”, who are registered with them (I am), to schools and colleges carrying out relevant events to meet their aims.

Shell LiveWire helps 16-30 year olds to develop their own businesses. It offers a free essential business kit to every caller and one-to-one advice through a national network of local businesses. It claims to have helped 600,000 young people to explore their ideas on starting a new business since 1982. Of these 16% have actually launched businesses.

STEP is sponsored by Shell. In this case it offers support for placements in UK companies over the summer vacation for undergraduates in their first or second years.

This organisation concentrates on the community social activities of shops, particularly in East London.

Yes, it is spelt correctly! The Trust is an educational charity committed to the running of courses for all stages of the business cycle. It tends to concentrate in the engineering and manufacturing sectors and is particularly interested in encouraging possible engineering students.

Social enterprises are dynamic businesses which, as well as providing their product or service, aim to deliver lasting and environmental change. The coalition has a very comprehensive website indicating a wide range of activities: these include working with schools. Information on social enterprise can also be accessed through the Department of Industry – www.dti.gov.uk

The Trust organises a series of conferences, events and activities to help teachers in the specialist schools.

This is a very comprehensive website, which aims to help undergraduate students find information from a wide range of sources.

For some years the Trident Trust has provided opportunities for work experience and it combined this with a requirement for each student to carry out community work relevant to opportunity and their needs (the three arms of the trident). It has now been taken over by Edexel, a UK examination board. It has now very much widened its brief to provide modular courses for teachers to organise their own programmes within schools and to help in the organisation of events to cover the curriculum enterprise requirements and advice on how to get help, financial and otherwise, from other organisations.

This is a very comprehensive on-line learning tool for students for work-related learning run by MBA. It seems quite sophisticated for this age-group and I would guess that it would need quite a lot of teacher involvement.

WWVol is a comprehensive source of information for volunteering in the UK and overseas for 16-25 year-olds. It publishes an occasional newsletter. It is well funded by a variety of companies and charitable trusts.

Year in Industry replaces the old INDEX scheme. It provides paid GAP year work opportunities for students between school and university. It is run from the University of Southampton.

YE helps schools to get teams of their pupils to set up companies within the school. The guiding principle is that students should learn about enterprise by “doing”. They provide all the paperwork plus a weekly visit from an adviser from local business to help the students carry out all the processes of start-up, marketing, production and deliver of actual products and services, financial aspects, selling shares, allocating profits and shut-down all within about 7 months. YE has local area boards of volunteers which promote the cause in their particular area and this is probably the best place for early contact in September. Most of this work is done within the sixth form.

YE now have launched programmes more suitable for younger pupils and these usually take place over ½ day or a full day or over a series of lessons within school time. They are part of a government sponsored “pathfinder” scheme launched in 2006. It is well funded by a variety of companies and charitable trusts.

This is an information organisation based in Leeds dedicated to the promotion of the development of education in enterprise. It is based in Leeds and concentrates its effort in Yorkshire.

YF invites 13-14 year olds within the DT curriculum to tackle the challenges of the future by designing a new product for the year 2020. The organisation provides teacher training and mentor support. It is sponsored by DFES and DTI.

This is a national charity that promotes and supports voluntary work with young people, particularly those connected to youth clubs. They offer criteria for youth achievement awards. They organise national conferences for those involved in youth work.


GCS/14.10.07