What a fantastic term it’s been! Since the start of September the Accelerate Programme has been in full swing, delivering a series of amazing workshops and inspiring sessions to over 260 young people in 6 different schools across Portsmouth and the surrounding areas.
This unique and exciting new programme was designed in partnership between Unloc and The City of Portsmouth College to explore young people’s aspirations, develop their employability and enterprise skills, and explore college life through a series of fun, interactive workshops!
Each workshop focused on one of the E6 principles, an initiative set up by the college to offer enrichment opportunities for students to prepare for the working world.
The students have worked so hard and really engaged with the programme this time, so what better way to end the current round of the Accelerate programme than with a graduation event to celebrate all their efforts! on Thursday 8th December at City Of Portsmouth College, Highbury Campus.
Students who completed the programme, along with their parents and guardians, braved the freezing conditions to join us and The City Of Portsmouth College at the College’s Highbury Campus on the 8th December to celebrate their hard work and be awarded their certificates.
The Unloc team were honoured to be joined by David Byford: Director for Business Engagement, Apprenticeships and Partnerships, Dan Franklin: Manager of School liaison and Councillor Suzy Horton, Portsmouth City Council’s Cabinet Member for Children, Education and Families.
Suzy delivered an inspiring speech to the pupils regarding the possibilities she seized throughout her education and career to get to her position within the local government administration.
After the certificate ceremony, the pupils were faced with one final Accelerate challenge provided by Uniformed Protective Services which involved making a chair from only balloons and sticky tape!
All the guests then enjoyed a fun evening of food, donuts, pic ’n’ mix candies, prizes and a photo-booth (which of course our wonderful Unloc facilitators needed to sample!).
It was an electric evening and the perfect way to end what has been such a brilliant new programme to add to the Unloc portfolio. Working closely with the college to develop such a bespoke programme for the students has been so fulfilling as we’ve watched them grow and develop, and we look forward to bringing Accelerate to more students in the new year.
As always we like to collect feedback from the young people we work with, so here are just a few of the comments that we collected on the night!
“I really enjoyed the Accelerate programme as I learnt new skills like debating. I really struggle with public speaking and this programme has really helped.”
Accelerate Programme Graduate
“Doing this course has taught me that there are so many options and skills out in the world that we don’t know until we actually try to achieve them.”
Accelerate Programme Graduate
“Just a quick note to thank you for running the Accelerate programme and graduation. [My young person] really enjoyed both parts of the programme, and I was very impressed with the graduation ceremony. Thank you for all you do for our young people.”
Graduation attendee
We’ll be begining a new round of the Accelerate programme in 2023, so keep an eye on our News page right here on the Unloc website, as well as on our social media channels to keep up to date!
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