When it comes to choosing a career path, and understanding your true potential, positive role models are vital – but not available to all. Lorraine Langham, CEO of the charity Future First, explains how children who are lacking positive role models can access inspiration
Read the full article below or read on page 10 in our November magazine
If you have ever wondered how influential a role model can be, look no further than the army of girls lacing up their football boots after witnessing the Lionesses’ Euro victory in July. Watching that cup final, and seeing the England women’s team make history before lifting the trophy aloft, has undoubtedly inspired millions. For many girls and young women, that tournament alone would have motivated them to play a sport they may have previously deemed inaccessible – not just professionally, but at any level.
Of course, the power of a positive role model doesn’t end with sport and celebrity; we are naturally influenced by all the lives we see, and the narratives of the people around us. In fact, the lives of those close to us, or the ones we perceive as similar to our own, are deeply influential and have a powerful impact on how we perceive our own potential in life.
There’s a lot of science behind the impact of role models. Fiona Murden, psychologist and award-winning author of Mirror Thinking, How Role Models Make Us Human, explores in depth how the mirror neuron in the brain defines us through the role models we see and interact with. From the moment we are born, we learn by observing others – the people we meet shape the people we become.
Sadly, for many children, their circumstances may deprive them of positive influences. This can mean that their ambition is inhibited by their belief or assumption of what a person from their background can do, or aspire to be. In fact, a staggering 50% of the most disadvantaged pupils don’t know anyone in a job they’d want to do, and only one-in-eight of the poorest pupils will go on to be high earners.
In recent years, this problem has been intensified by circumstances brought on by the pandemic. According to a new study released in June, eight-out-of-ten teachers believe that their students are less ready for work than they were prior to the pandemic. The report, from Teach First, also stated that more than half of the teachers in schools serving poorer communities said they felt the pandemic had had a negative impact on their pupils’ views of their career prospects. With the disadvantage gap widening, the importance of providing children with access to a positive network of role models grows ever more important.
Relatability and broadening horizons
By giving children the opportunity to hear from relatable role models, we are able to expand their aspirations, allowing them to explore and consider careers they may have otherwise overlooked. Considering job roles held by people with backgrounds, and with experiences similar to their own, helps them to challenge their assumptions of what is achievable. These networks of role models naturally build pupil confidence and a belief that ‘people like me’ can succeed.
This is especially so if the role models happen to share experiences – for example, if they have attended the same school, grown up in the same area, or have similar interests, their journey will resonate a lot more. These role models can be from all walks of life, in all kinds of jobs, but they shouldn’t focus on their success; it is important that children hear about what they have overcome, how their journey has unfolded, what they did, and what it took to get where they are.
There are a range of ways schools can access such a bank of role models, whether by utilising the available support services, contacting individuals themselves, or by identifying and reaching out to relevant employers in the school’s region. Over the past decade Future First has helped over 1,300 schools to engage their past pupils as powerful role models, bringing them back into classrooms and assemblies to motivate pupils and share their authentic narratives and pathways.
Powerful encounters
Through our research we have found that a number of meaningful encounters with role models in positive positions has a profound impact on young people, especially girls and those from disadvantaged backgrounds. As well as broadening young people’s horizons, and raising their aspirations, interactions with role models can inspire and excite children about specific subjects and increase their motivation, as well as developing their confidence.
Even short encounters with role models make a difference; surprisingly, reading biographies, and watching videos of people you relate to, can have an impact on attitudes to, and feelings of, academic belonging – but most powerful are face-to-face encounters and they help schools deliver on the Gatsby benchmarks, too, as alumni are also employers.
Students taking part in workshops with past pupils reported improvements in key areas:
Increased motivation to work hard (76%): they take more ownership over their work in order to achieve goals.
Increased self-efficacy (78%): they are more confident in their ability to achieve the goals they set.
Better able to link school work to their lives outside school (73%): they see how learning in the classroom contributes to life outside it.
However, the best thing about using alumni as role models is that you get new leavers signed up every year, so it’s a sustainable and cost-effective way to inspire, inform, motivate and connect young people with the world of work.
There are many diverse pathways, education choices and careers available – and who better to tell your pupils about them, than the students of yesterday?
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