Applied Creativity + Placement Partners = Future Talent
Tomorrow is results day again… A Levels, Level 3 and level 4 qualifications will be released and all schools and colleges will release statistics and quantitative data showing how brilliant they are. It’s an annual event. It’s well established and it serves a purpose, but it’s rather boring.
Don’t get me wrong. Many of these young people have have worked their socks off. They have learnt lots of knowledge and skills and that is an enormous part of what life is for. We should recognise and value their efforts and they should be proud of themselves. But grades are not the point. Sure, they symbolise something… hard work, perseverance. They may even show that a young person has found their thing, developed love and passion and invested themselves in a practice; learnt a craft, that they have joined a body of work. But the grades are only a little bit interesting. What’s far more exciting and inspiring is who a person is becoming and where they are headed - what they have found out about themselves and what decisions they are making about their contribution is to this world and their community.
Employers and universities do look at grades, but not for as long as you might think, and certainly not on their own. Skills, experience, values, temperament, character matter more and are looked at for much longer.
So, tomorrow and Thursday, I will engage fully in the annual and obligatory work of analysing data and publicising percentages, but today I wanted to shout out the aspect of our work that is sometimes missed on results day. Its the more qualitative part of what we do and it matters a lot more than grades alone can show.
A big thank you to the ScreenCraft placement partners
I want to shout out our partners. All those creative professionals and production companies that provide industry placements, mentoring, work experience and employer engagements. These partnerships do not produce grades or statistics and therefore, they are overlooked on results day. BUT. MAKE. NO. MISTAKE. This is the inspiration engine that supercharges skills development. Like the titular formula suggests, it’s industry placements that require young people to apply creativity - to action their craft and trade. It takes them beyond classroom, beyond concept and requires that they engage their full self - this accelerates character growth and skills confidence. And maybe most importantly it makes cultural contribution and vocation the main thing - which it is.
Currently, we have our post18 ESA ScreenCraft offer, which provides trainees with 8 weeks of placements and production practice. Next year we launch T Levels at ESA - a new qualification for post 16 students which also has 8 weeks of production placement as part of the course. We are expanding applied, creative, placement education and training because we see its deeper value in developing proactive, employable, applied, confident characters with a creative contribution to make.
Over the coming weeks, I will be publishing here some specific case studies featuring some exciting placement partnerships such as our new collaborations with CAMHS Digi Lab and Headliner Magazine… and more to follow. If you’re interested in providing placements to future creative and technical talent, please get in touch with us at partnerships@esa.ac - it’s a great way to add talent to your crew at minimal cost, whilst supporting the creative talent pipeline.
