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Where you are now - - - > THINK 5+ Campaign
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THINK 5+ Campaign
 | Many students make a positive contribution to the school and the wider community. For example, students do the catering for the mayor's 'Tea Party' and are greatly respected for the quality of the food they produce. An older learners' group use the school's computers alongside students.
|  | | Ofsted, 2009 |
 On 24 August 2006, the Learning Skills Council (LSC) issued a press release in which they said:
"Employers today issued a stark warning to young people that they risk becoming unemployable without a minimum set of qualifications and are urging those who don’t make the grade to stay in education or training to boost their prospects.
New research from the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) reveals that more than one in five (22%) employers say they would not recruit job-seekers with less than five good GCSEs or the vocational equivalent - and 15 per cent completely ignore CVs if the job applicant does not have these essential qualifications. On average employers said they would pay someone a starting salary £1,700 higher (an increase of 17%) if they had five A*-C GCSEs or vocational equivalent, compared to someone without these qualifications plus experience. This backs up official statistics which state that over a lifetime someone with the minimum set of qualifications will earn £4,000 more per year compared to someone without.
LSC data suggests over half (54%) of school-leavers drop out of education because of financial reasons, but with support such as Education Maintenance Allowance available the message to young people opening their GCSE results this week could not be clearer.
Julia Dowd, Director of Young People’s Learning at the LSC, said:
"This research really hits home the fact that employment opportunities open to young people are massively enhanced by staying in education and training. By not dropping out, young people significantly improve their job prospects and earning potential".
On 23 August 2007, the BBC News website reported that:
"Employers would pay an extra £2,261 a year to staff with the benchmark five good GCSEs . . . Those with five GCSEs grade A* to C, or their vocational equivalent, would get an average of £13,016 a year, a survey of 271 recruiting managers suggested. This compares with an average salary of £11,412 for a person with just one GCSE or its vocational equivalent.
The Learning and Skills Council poll suggested employers would pay new staff an average of £450 more for every GCSE . . . The research is backed up by Office of National Statistics data which suggests people with the minimum five GCSEs earn an average of £55 a week more than those without such qualifications."
At Cornelius we work hard to help our pupils to become valuable members of society - this includes being employable. We have therefore launched a campaign around school and with parents to put across the importance of achieving 5+ A*-C grades, using the statistics that the LSC have released from their survey of employers.
 Pupils achieving highly in examinations 2006
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producing posters to go into classrooms and around school corridors;
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making parents aware of the campaign through school communications;
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telling pupils to 'think 5+' through assemblies and tutor time;
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ensuring academic mentors get the message across to pupils.
Through lessons, homework, coursework, academic mentoring, revision classes, study support classes, online support and high quality resources (to name but very few of the methods we use), we hope to improve the number of our pupils achieving 5 or more A*-C grades in their GCSE (or equivalent) examinations.
Additional Information
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