We have previously featured the great work being achieved by the Rinova-led Pan Out project, which promotes to careers advisers and pupils, through innovative employer interventions, the wealth of opportunities available within the hospitality (food and accommodation) sector. Pan Out is funded by the ESFA Careers Clusters, in which Rinova are partnered by Wandsworth Lifelong Learning and Learn Train Recruit (LTR).

Now well into our second year, Pan Out is showing all the ingredients for success and we can really see the momentum building. We are confident that the relationships we are created between schools and employers will have a lasting and sustained impact on the opportunities offered to pupils in our six participating schools. There is a short film on our website about the career opportunities in hospitality, and we are currently working on the Employer-endorsed Careers Strategies for each school, aligning their provision to the Gatsby Benchmarks. Pan Out has already exceeded its targets and at the last count had reached 3911 pupils and some 100 teachers, while referring a further 100+ into work experience via the B.E.S.T team at Wandsworth Lifelong Learning.

Amongst the great examples of employers and schools coming together are two events that have taken place or are planned for the near future.

Firstly, Randall Close – Dignity in Care, where students from Southfields Academy participated in a Dignity in Care event hosted by Leonard Cheshire at the Randall Close Resource Centre on February 1st 2018. Students worked with Daksha Mistry, former finalist of the BBC’s MasterChef programme, contributing the refreshments for the day, in the form of a delicious buffet lunch. Daksha has written about his own Pan Out journey, which you can read here.

This event brought together two of Pan Outs’ pilot Employers in one activity, a very welcome development that creates twice the opportunity for the pupils attending.The day created some fantastic learning experiences for the students. Not only did they gain some excellent catering skills, under the watchful eye of a highly experienced chef, they also learned that there are many settings where food and nutrition are at the top of the agenda. This setting was quite different to many of the pilot projects delivered under Pan Out but was an excellent example of the diversity of a career in the food and accommodation services sector.

William Gallagher, manager of Randall Close said: “It’s really important that young people understand and have an awareness and understanding of the needs of adults in a Centre such as ours. I was absolutely delighted to have the students from Southfields participating in this event and we are building a good link with all the schools in Wandsworth”. William Gallagher invited Dawn Warwick, Director of Children’s Services for Wandsworth Council, to recognise each of the students as dignity champions and pupils were presented with certificates, wrist bands and lapel pins. The students showed great enthusiasm and potential, and were a great credit to the school and to the Pan Out project.

Secondly, also currently underway is an innovative and exciting challenge, Tooting street food challenge – again backed by a number of the Pan Out employers working collaboratively. In this activity, the six participating Wandsworth schools will go head-to-head in designing the best street food and beverage idea. Set in and around the iconic Tooting market, the street food competition will present young people with a unique opportunity to develop a business idea and to put their entrepreneurial skills into practice.

The competition will run apprenticeship style! This means that young people will work together to develop their business idea, and as a team, deliver their product to the friendly folk of Tooting. The project will bring together key employers that have made Pan Out such a success but we also intend to add some new ingredients into the mix, in the form of a surprise celebrity or two and support from other local businesses.

During this activity, young people will work with the Pan Out Master Chefs and other hospitality gurus (e.g. the London Cocktail Club ) to learn how to creatively turn an idea into a real, tangible enterprise. There will be no “Dragons”, only Champions, mentoring and coaching young people to produce the most enterprising ideas possible.

In the spirit of enterprise there will be an overall winner and prize for the winning team. All teams will get to keep their profit!