Through one of our student placements last year, we were introduced to the FSB as a potential forum to recruit additional T Level placement providers. Whilst large corporates possibly have an established apprenticeship/student placement programme in place, small businesses can often really benefit from hosting a T Level student on placement and give a different perspective for our students.
After several conversations, we offered to host one of their regular meetings at Ada Lovelace School One of the reasons we offered to host the event was to enable our T Level students to join the event. This was a chance for them to engage with small business owners from the local area, make connections and grow in confidence in a professional environment.
During the session Mr Knox shared the benefits of hosting a T Level student on placement and the small business owner who hosted a student from Ada Lovelace last year, spoke about her experience. She ran through the range of tasks she was able to ask the student to complete and highlighted the value the student added to her business. In particular, as this was a Digital student, she was able to use the student’s expertise to help her with website content and analysis. She also discussed how she added training elements to the placement so that the student was continually learning.
FSB members were able to ask lots of questions in this forum and we hope it helped them to see the benefits of hosting a T Level student, not just as an extra pair of hands but also the chance to shape a young person and possibly build a pipeline for future employment.
Overall, it was a very productive session, and we already have one additional placement secured for 2025-26. We hope more members will consider the positive outcomes of hosting a T Level student in their business in future.
