Bricklaying, hairdressing and zoo trips: How to solve the NEET crisis

Targeted support for primary school pupils, setting up more vocational courses and shadowing the bosses at zoos are among the ways that schools are trying to give pupils the best chance of finding a job.

More than one million young people are now not in education, employment or training, or “NEET”.

A damning review by former health secretary Alan Milburn recently accused schools of being too focused on exams and getting pupils into university.

The institutions built to support young people into adulthood “are no longer fit for that purpose”, Milburn warned.

The “tail of failure will persist” until schools are held accountable for what happens after pupils leave, he added.

The landmark report reignited a fierce debate about what steps schools should take to prepare pupils for adult life.

Union leaders said the review showed the need for a “fundamental shift in our thinking about the goals of the education system”.

But there are differing views on the role of schools and concerns that too much weight has been put on their shoulders as other services have crumbled.

Schools Week spoke to schools delivering frontline solutions, not just for helping students find careers, but for showing the relevance of what they learn in the classroom.

Expanding careers’ services

The Milburn review warned that careers guidance was a “statutory duty without enforcement”.

But Pepe Di’Lasio, general secretary of the ASCL schools leaders’ union, said schools were striving to provide high-quality guidance “against the odds”.

He added: “The rug was pulled from a national system of careers guidance early in the 2010s and ever since then we’ve been playing catch-up.”

Karen Hayward, executive principal of Sandy Secondary School in Bedfordshire, decided to make having a strong careers framework a “strategic priority” two years ago.

The school took a multi-pronged approach, as Hayward knew it could not just be a “bolt-on”.

For example, the school’s curriculum lead looked at curriculum structure to find appropriate places to add in careers education. Teachers then included it in lessons and classroom displays.

Under another initiative, the school enrolled students who were not fully engaged with school into a six-week programme. One day a week they would visit Whipsnade Zoo in Dunstable, where staff would show pupils the different careers on offer.

“They have come back from that inspired to actually now want to be in school, finish their qualifications, and know what pathway they want to go down,” Hayward said.

NEET rates for the school’s former pupils have “reduced considerably”, from 5 to 6 per cent two years ago to around 1 per cent now. But there are challenges in delivering sufficient careers advice for schools.

Lisa Russell, a professor at Manchester Metropolitan University, is leading the mapping interventions for NEET young people in England (MINE) project. It tracked 81 young people from year 10 through to their post-16 destination, with final findings due later this month.

She said careers guidance varied across schools, but that challenges facing the sector, including tight curriculum time and staff retention issues, meant informal but “transformational” conversations about careers for pupils were being “squeezed” out.

Hayward acknowledged that the biggest challenge was the need for a “culture shift” among staff and making them realise that it was a question of doing what they already do in a different way, rather than taking up more of their time.

Di’Iasio added that Milburn’s report “also makes clear that all of this needs a fundamental shift in our thinking about the goals of the education system.

“It is very heavily focused at present on exam results, when what ultimately matters most is securing working opportunities for every young person.”

Identifying NEETs at an early stage

The Careers and Enterprise Company, which is funded by the government to improve careers education in schools, has launched a new data feature called OnTrack+. It combines indicators including attendance, free school meals, looked-after status and pupil premium.

Schools can then see where pupils have a combination of those factors and may be at greater risk of becoming NEET.

Since launching in February, nearly 900 schools have used the tool.

Derby Moor Spencer Academy piloted OnTrack+ last autumn. Alma Hrncic, associate assistant principal, said it resulted in them focusing support for pupils in years 9 and 11, whereas in the past they had only focused on year 11s.

The school identified 15 year 9 students who could potentially become NEET and then invited construction firm Balfour Beatty to run a team-building exercise.

Pupils were also shown vocational routes during a college visit – including the on-site zoo – as well as academic provision.

Hrncic said the school would track the year 9 group for the next two years to see what difference the programme made.

Milburn’s review also warned that the risk of becoming NEET is often identified early but not always acted on.

While having the data is useful, Hrncic said the hard part is “what you do with that data and how that is interpreted”.

“The intervention part is, in my opinion, the hardest bit,” she said, “because you are relying on people and organisations outside your school.

“If you do have a careers lead in the school, get them contacting the businesses, get them trying to establish the links […] get them in front of your students, get them to tell you what the local labour market needs.”

Setting up vocational courses

Former headteacher Darren Lyon spoke of how he set up several vocational courses across three different schools.

While he was deputy head in 2008, Wollaston School in Northamptonshire set up courses in bricklaying and vehicle maintenance.

He then set up a combined cadets force at St Thomas Freemantle School in Buckinghamshire in 2014 when he was headteacher.

And in 2021, he set up courses in construction and hair and beauty while he was headteacher of Waterhead Academy in Oldham.

Across the three schools, they had to build a construction centre on top of an old swimming pool, a fully equipped garage and install hairdressers’ equipment.

Lyon, now semi-retired, acknowledged that this work was expensive. He said Wollaston received some additional council funding for the construction and vehicle maintenance course.

The cadets were funded through the school budget, while the hairdressing and bricklaying courses at Waterhead Academy were funded from the school’s reserves.

They also had to hire additional specialist staff in some cases.

“If you are in the vicinity of decent FE colleges, that’s a good start because that crossover is quite useful,” said Lyon.

Reflecting on her research, Russell said the young people they spoke to “had a desire to learn” and get jobs, but often their experiences were “thwarted” by issues outside their control, such as bullying, mental health issues and undiagnosed special educational needs.

“The overall feeling was that young people just didn’t feel a sense of belonging at school,” she said.

Milburn also found that the strengths of NEET children can go “unnoticed” by schools.

Lyon said many students in the vocational classes “probably experienced quite a lot of school where nobody really cared what they thought”, because either they struggled academically or found sit-down learning difficult.

“I can certainly say that some of those youngsters, had they not had that vocational option, they would never have stayed in school.”

UTC sleeves

The Baker Dearing Educational Trust, which represents university technical colleges (UTCs), started setting up new UTC “sleeves” in secondary schools almost three years ago.

Walney School in Cumbria will run a sleeve from next year to allow pupils aged 14 to 18 to do vocational courses in either healthcare or engineering alongside their compulsory curriculum.

Simon Laheney, chief executive of Walney’s trust Furness Education, said the initiative will “serve as a valuable resource” for schools by “strengthening opportunities and raising aspirations for the whole community”.

The programme has received £1.7 million investment from Team Barrow, a local public-private partnership between the council, government and local organisations.

While Baker Dearing has secured multiple sources of funding for existing and developing UTC sleeves, including from public-private partnerships and philanthropy, it is pushing for the government to commit to investing in them.

Kate Ambrosi, Baker Dearing’s chief executive, said there was “huge demand’ for sleeves, particularly in multi-academy trusts where there is a strong UTC nearby.

Schools need to have a more “acute” focus on destinations, and the sleeve programme aimed to help with that, she said.

“We are trying to help these young people get into the world of work in a broader sense. Being brilliant at one academic subject is not often a way to that.

“Not all our young people chose to go to a UTC because they were desperate to become engineers. Quite a few just saw an opportunity to change things for themselves and take on a more purposeful education.”

A 2025 impact report showed that just 5 per cent of pupils at UTCs became NEET, compared to 13.3 per cent nationally.

Bridging the gap with employers

Di’Iasio said that the Milburn review showed the need for a more “strategic approach”, but added that there needed to be “stronger partnerships” between all sectors of society to make this possible.

Some schools were taking part in externally run programmes, including for primary aged pupils.

The “My Future” programme was set up by Ali Gellett, Big Education’s AI project lead, in 2019. It targets Essex primary schools, with 115 taking part, by inviting employers to talk to pupils in years 1 to 6 over Zoom about their jobs every half term.

Gellett started with primary aged children as research shows that pupils have a “fixed mindset” of what they can and cannot do by the age of seven.

She said this is also affected by their background and gender, so wanted to challenge the stereotypes about what sort of jobs they aim for.

Gellett said: “Heads and teachers tell us of pupils who rarely attended school and who are now back in regular attendance, pupils who have significant increases in attainment levels due to renewed purpose, and of an air of excitement and exploration during the sessions.”

The programme was initially funded through several sources, including local schools and Southend YMCA charity. It is currently fully funded by Essex County Council.

Gellett hopes to expand the programme to secondary schools.

Meanwhile in Leeds, the Cockburn Academy Trust is working with social enterprise company Ahead Partnership to target pupils at risk of becoming NEET.

Every half term, 60 pupils in year 8 will visit local businesses to learn about employment opportunities in their area.

The students were chosen because they either have poor attendance, special educational needs, or are disadvantaged.

The year 8 group will remain in the programme until year 11. During this time, they will have the chance to set up their own businesses, create a social action project and take part in a mentoring programme.

Terri Nelson, assistant head at Cockburn School, said she had students come up to her every day to ask, “when’s the next trip miss”, and “have you decided what we’re doing next year miss”.

She added that the programme was about looking at “what we can do as a school that makes students feel like they belong and they can thrive in our community”.

The initiative is largely funded by the Liz and Terry Bramall Foundation, with the school also making a financial contribution.

Ahead Partnership is trying to raise more money from local businesses to allow the next cohort of year 8s to take part in the programme.

Rethinking work experience

Social mobility charity Causeway Education recently launched the “boss of tomorrow” programme, where 14 year 10 students from across seven schools shadow a company chief executive.

London state schools nominate two students who have demonstrated leadership potential who then have to submit their own application. There are no specific disadvantage criteria for them to be eligible to apply.

Two pupils – Alex and Lionel – from St Thomas the Apostle School & Sixth Form College (STAC), spent the day with Kathryn England, chief executive at London Zoo.

Alex told Schools Week: “At the zoo we got to see every aspect of what they do there. That gave us ideas of what we could pursue or what skills you need to do multiple jobs, not just one.”

Lionel added: “Usually when you do work experience, you don’t work with someone as high as the CEO. To see how the CEO does their job is quite an original experience.”

Claire Rodin, the school’s lead for future prospects and progression, said the programme was “hugely empowering” for pupils, particularly when “there is scarcity of opportunity” for work experience.

Schools should have ‘reduced burden’

Rodin said that, while schools do have a responsibility to prepare pupils for work, they cannot “draw from an empty well”.

She added: “Every visit and trip takes up so much time to work out, and it’s always worth it for the students.

“But, if those opportunities are not available to schools, then I do think the government needs to step in and say to businesses or other organisations that they have a responsibility to provide that.”

Daniel Kebede, general secretary of the NEU, said that expert advice should be reinstated at council level and would lead to better outcomes and a “reduced burden” on schools.

“Schools, leaders and teachers do their best to find ways to offer this to young people, but it is not their specialism, and it is wrong that, like so many other things, it is left to them to mop up.”