Now in its 4th year, the Urban Synergy and Barclays RISE programme concluded with 24 students from Christ The King Sixth Form College learning essential soft skills through a series of workshops.
RISE (Revealing the Industry to Secondary Education) is a mentoring programme designed to engage, equip and encourage young people aged 16 – 19 with the soft skills and confidence they need to excel post-secondary education.
All 24 mentees are assigned a Barclays volunteer mentor to support them throughout the programme, each providing inspiration and valuable advice on academic and professional career paths.
The 6 week programme consists of workshops covering:
- Introduction and speed mentoring
- Workplace values, discussion on success, goals and ambitions
- Digital Skills with Freeformers
- Group workshop on design led thinking at Barclays RISE Innovation Centre
- Trading floor tour and Q&A with traders
- Presentation challenge
Our evaluation of the programme based on feedback from students reports:
- Gains in confidence, workplace values, networking and presentation skills
- Mentoring helped significantly, providing additional information and ideas on career paths.
- All would recommend the programme to friends.
Mentee Feedback
“I have further enhanced my confidence, communication skills and most especially, I have learned how to network during the Barclays RISE Program.”
“Networking has been a key skill that I have gained from the programme which I believe will enable me in the future to put it into practise. I have also learned workplace values and I believe that I have further enhanced my confidence around new people and using initiative during various differ skills and activities throughout the course of the programme.”
“My mentor helped me to build a picture of the career path that I would enjoy and succeed in, in the future which I am very happy and grateful for.”
“Ultimately this programme was absolutely wonderful and has been my most successful achievement of 2017 alongside my GCSE results and I wish I could have many more of such opportunities. I would like to thank Barclays and Christ the King for granting this opportunity and all the mentors, Urban Synergy and their volunteers and every other professional who volunteered and /or decided to come speak to us as it was very helpful”
