The Unite in Schools programme is more than just about promoting trade unionism to individuals – it is also about demonstrating their role at work and in society. It is aimed at 14-15 year olds in school years 10 and 11 and can be linked to the Stage 4 Citizenship National Curriculum.

Part of my role is to ensure that schoolchildren understand the importance of getting the best advice they can about the world of work. This includes the skills they will need to gain employment and progress in the workplace. This has resulted in me working closely with Unionlearn and, in particular, Mark Rowe from the Apprenticeships project to demonstrate how important advice and guidance is and to show that there are different routes to the same trades and professions, be they academic or vocational.

Although schools must arrange careers advice for their pupils, they do not have to supply it themselves and indeed may not be equipped in terms of resources, time or expertise to do so. Moreover, following changes in how careers advice is obtained and supplied there are now many different agencies playing a role in supplying advice and support.

The beauty of the union learning movement is that we have lots of contacts in the field, so we can act as a force for bringing these together and finding the best solutions for each workplace, community or school.

Recently, we have been widening our programme – tailoring it to the various needs of individual schools, running sessions in the context of the citizenship syllabus around 'British values'. We’ve also been de-mystifying the role of trade unions and workplace representatives in longer and larger assembly sessions - comprising as many as 120 student council representatives from across the age range.

At the request of certain schools, we’ve also been broadening our sessions into a day-long conferences on campaigning and equalities for younger students and running very participatory sessions in special needs schools. Finally, the programme is now focusing on collaboration with universities and FE colleges on issues around apprenticeships and building student councils and unions.