On Friday at the Holy Family Technology College in Walthamstow, three former pupils found themselves back in their old school assembly hall, standing before 180 excitable Year 10s. The three alumni have gone on to do completely different jobs – one is a magazine editor, another works for HMRC and the third is training up for the police force. Trained youth workers led the event, inviting the alumni to speak about their jobs and career paths, their own experiences of work placements in Year 10 and how current students can make the most of their upcoming fortnight of work experience which for most of the students will be their first taste of working life. After the assembly, a Year 10 came up the former students to tell them, ‘I really rate you guys!’

The power of personal networks for both broadening careers awareness and offering actual access to the world of world is widely recognised. Some young people are lucky enough to have parents and friends with large and diverse personal networks that they can tap into; raising their own aspirations and offering work opportunities. Future First was founded by state school graduates from north London to build alumni communities for those students that don’t have these advantages, supporting them as they start to think about, and eventually enter, the world of work.

Private schools have long been leveraging their networks of old boys and girls to provide inspiration, advice and guidance to their students. Future First works to bring these, and so many more, benefits to students in state schools. Through a curriculum of events facilitated by our team and state of the art web platforms, we have already developed opportunity-creating networks in 16 UK state schools that most private schools would envy.

We have just launched a new service designed to build alumni networks from the ground up. ‘Future First Networks’ helps schools to keep in touch with their former students after they leave, keeping them updated on the school’s progress and, in turn, keeping the school updated on what their alumni go on to do after they leave school. Effectively engaged, these former students become a community that can be mobilised as volunteers or mentors, career or education role models and even one day governors and donors.

The 2010 Progress manifesto conference was one of the first public forums where the idea of bringing alumni communities to every state school was proposed. It was voted ‘best new policy idea’ then. Now, just over two years later, it’s becoming a reality. Thanks to the Social Action Fund, managed by The Social Investment Business, Cabinet Office resources have been made available to take Future First’s work beyond its current network of 50 schools, and on to 500.

The prospect of being in every state school in the country within a couple of years is now very real.

Polling last year found that there are 10 million adults in the UK willing to volunteer time at their old schools to support and advise the next generation of students. There is a wealth of experience and knowledge right there in our own communities, but it isn’t always tapped into. We’re working to change that.

The Future First Networks service is free for the first 500 schools to sign up. To register your school, please visit here

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Avais Qureshi is Future First programme officer

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Photo: UK Labour