Form The Future
Future Business Centre, King's Hedges Road, Cambridge, CB4 2HY
How many of us can say we do a job that truly makes a difference? Anne Bailey can wear that badge with pride as every day, she – and her dedicated team – help to empower young people to ‘dream big’. Anne founded Form the Future in 2015, with business partner Michaela Eschbach, to help young people find their route through education into employment and provide employers access to their future talent.
Anne had previously worked for corporates such as BT, which ran education programmes within schools – and when she moved to Cambridge (her children at secondary school), she became concerned at the system’s focus on exam results, and lack of practical career advice. So, she began approaching schools about the possibility of engaging with local companies – and so the journey began.
Though Anne’s team is relatively modest in size, their impact is huge, helping around 20,000 students, aged eight upwards, each year. They’ve recently expanded into schools in Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire, Essex, Suffolk and Norwich, and thanks to their Erasmus programme, Form the Future is now in demand in Norway, Finland and Denmark.
Committed to each stage of young people’s development, the dedicated team provides schools, colleges and other groups with high-quality outsourced Careers Education, Information, Advice and Guidance (CEIAG) services.
Regular events include Enterprise Days, with scholars tasked to come up with imaginative product ideas and there’s also practical help on creating sparkling CVs, interview techniques, careers advice, work experience placements and apprenticeship opportunities.
Since 2016, Form the Future has also managed a STEM outreach programme, Cambridge LaunchPad. Together with 26 industry partners, the organisation runs hands-on STEM related project days with 29 schools, to showcase the diverse range of careers and education pathways into STEM industries and meet the growing demand for a skilled workforce in the Greater Cambridge region.