Lisa Scott (HHS) and Stacey Grieve (DYW)

Hawick Rotary Club met once again at Mansfield House Hotel on Thursday, 27 January and were joined by Lisa Scott, Depute Head at Hawick High School and Stacey Grieve, coordinator at DYW Borders, Developing the Young Workforce, who works between Hawick High School and Berwickshire High School.

Stacey has a unique task where her overarching role is to connect between local employers and the school, making the Borders a place where we can keep our young people as we have an aging population. Stacey is focusing on Graduate Level apprenticeships where pupils who have Highers can be trained on the job and be put through the Open University and also Foundation apprentices where she engages with pupils in S5 and S6 to go into work places so they are ‘work ready ‘.

Stacey is raising the aspirations of pupils and >190 former pupils responded to an email when asked to talk about their experiences, most of which were very positive. Employers are now coming to Stacey with offers of apprenticeships.

Hawick High School has taken delivery of a Green Powered car and they are looking for volunteers to help the pupils build this.

Stacey has also set up a series of mock interviews for S6 pupils with members of Hawick Rotary Club which will be held in the STEM Hub (science, technology, engineering and mathematics)  in Hawick as the STEM Hub in Hawick are looking at renewable, clean energy where a lot of young people see their future.

Lisa then told us about some of the many initiatives she has set up within Hawick High School such as talking with Nick Bannerman from Johnson’s of Elgin to get experiences for some young people and Johnson’s can look upon it as ‘try before you buy’! She also spoke about the STEP progamme (senior transmission employability programme) which she is running with Nick, getting a group of companies from our town to offer engagement to pupils.

Lisa says ‘the future of our town is with our community’ and is running the Build Your Futures programme which means getting pupils, particularly girls, into STEM positions at S3 level.

Thank you to both for a very interesting presentation and discussion.