Working with Schools
Why we work with schools
The association is community focussed. Many of the staff that work in our factories, warehouses and offices live locally, as do many of the business owners themselves. We can help immeasurably in our members’ ESG (Environment & Social Governance) by enabling them to give back to our local community.
We do this primarily with our out-reach to schools.
Apart from our members’ own ESG goals, this also facilitates a new benchmarking that all secondary schools must attain.
Of the new OFSTED ‘Gatsby Benchmarks’, Benchmark 6 requires schools to provide the following:
Every student should have first-hand experiences of the workplace through work visits, work shadowing and/or work experience to help their exploration of career opportunities, and expand their networks.
- By the age of 16, every pupil should have had at least one experience of a workplace, additional to any part-time jobs they may have.
Our aim is to help make that happen
STEM: Science Technology Engineering & Maths
Mid Sussex Science Week is now in its eleventh year. In 2026 we will be working with 11 primary schools across Burgess Hill and Haywards Heath and engaging with 1,000 ten-year-olds, promoting the study of Science, Technology, Engineering & Maths (STEM). This is facilitated with active participation from our members who will go into each school and work on a STEM project over one week in June.
Secondary Schools Careers Departments
We currently work closely with the careers departments of:
- Burgess Hill Academy
- Downlands College
- St Paul’s Catholic College
- Burgess Hill Girls
- Woodlands Meed
We encourage our members to get involved in their ‘Mock Job Interview’ mornings. These typically happen in the Autumn term.
In addition to this, we encourage our members to offer work placements for 100’s of 15 year olds each year. These are requested for July.
For this reason, following consultation from the careers departments and further input from several of our members, we can now offer an easy to implement programme for work placements.
We have given you some great ideas to help you make this happen, whether it’s a five or two day placement.
You can download Warden Park’s very comprehensive guides in the section below: