Business and school leaders witnessed the destination-led education provided by the Ofsted ‘outstanding’ UTC Portsmouth on Thursday 14th November.
The Baker Dearing Educational Trust organised the stakeholder day with Principal James Doherty and the UTC’s staff.
It provided an opportunity for representatives from UTC Portsmouth’s employer partners and colleagues from other UTCs to visit UTC Portsmouth and understand its innovative education model.
The visit also made use of UTC Portsmouth’s brand-new £1 million extension which was finished just the week before and will include a boardroom and a student fitness suite.
Oversubscribed UTC attracts specialist staff
The day began with a talk from Doherty on UTC Portsmouth’s innovative education model, as well as an update from Baker Dearing’s deputy chief executive (and incoming chief executive) Kate Ambrosi on the national UTC programme.
Doherty explained to the visitors how:
- UTC Portsmouth focuses on progressing students to positive destinations after they leave school, with 49 per cent of the UTC’s leavers progressing to an apprenticeship, compared to six per cent in the south-east.
- None of the students have left to become NEET (not in education, employment, or training).
- The UTC is now four times oversubscribed and fully staffed with specialists. For example, the school has recruited all four of the city’s physics teachers.
Other examples of the UTC’s innovative education include zero marking or homework, to reduce the administrative burden on staff and allow students more free time to “enjoy being teenagers,” and take part in activities outside school, Doherty told the visitors.
Ambrosi then gave a presentation on the national UTC programme, which encompasses 44 schools across England.
Student enrolment across the programme hit a record 21,000 this year, after years of steady growth.
Twenty per cent of young people who left a UTC in 2024 progressed to apprenticeship, Ambrosi explained, compared to four per cent nationally.
To build on this success, she continued, Baker Dearing has recently appointed Make UK chief executive Stephen Phipson CBE as its new chair, with incumbent chair and UTC programme founder Lord Baker stepping up to the role of Life President of the trust.
Ambrosi also introduced #tthinkUTC week, a celebration of those successes in the UTC programme, which is taking place between 18 and 22 November.
Businesses engage with students through UTC Portsmouth’s co-curriculum
Following the presentations, visitors were given a tour of the UTC, including its cutting-edge engineering facilities, the new expansion, and several classes.
The UTC’s provision is linked to six STEM learning habits: resilience, creative problem solving, teamwork, responsibility, communication skills and curiosity.
Doherty and UTC Portsmouth’s Assistant Principal Alex Blandford explained during the day how these habits are taught through the standard curriculum, as well as a ‘co-curriculum’.
This co-curriculum covers the vast majority of employer engagement activities, such as working lunches, projects that employers set for students, and guest lectures from those organisations.
Students, Blandford explained, take part in four to five “big” employer interactions each year.
He also told visitors about the UTC’s ‘project pipeline,’ where students work in groups with employers on a project to develop STEM learning habits. For example, students have worked with BAE Systems on a project to build a glider.
UTC Portsmouth alumni Ollie Groth, who now works for Airbus, said the glider project had been a “unique opportunity.”
Twenty per cent of students who work with an employer partner on a project progress to a destination with that organisation, Blandford added.
Visitors took another tour around the UTC to view the enrichment activities which are built into the curriculum, where students, for example, design new cosmetic projects, create collages, and build dioramas to further build STEM learning habits.
Students who had dedicated their enrichment time to developing strategies for board games had gone on to give a presentation on war gaming to representatives from the government’s Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL). This presentation helped some of the students secure roles with DSTL upon leaving the UTC.
