Nearly 2,000 students at racecourse careers fair

Nearly 2,000 students have spent a day at a famous racecourse for a careers fair, with one student calling it a "brilliant" experience.

Cheltenham Racecourse, in Gloucestershire, swapped out jockeys for job seekers as 60 firms spoke to students about what their businesses could offer them on Wednesday.

It comes after Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the government had inherited a country that "isn't working" and promised to tackle the biggest drivers of unemployment and inactivity.

Angela Edwards, director of company Circle 2 Success, said the business community wanted to "engage" with young people.

The students took part in speed networking, in which a company representative sits down with students.

For about seven minutes, job seekers could learn more about what each business did and whether work experience was a possibility.

Analysis by The Key Group, which studied 146,947 Year 10 pupils in 756 secondary schools in England, suggested that only 49% of young people aged 14 to 15 had done some work experience in the 2023/24 academic year.

Among those who did work experience, the average time spent on a placement was just under five days, the analysis suggested, and fewer than 2% of pupils went on work experience for two weeks or more.

Ms Edwards, who organised the event along with her team, said: "We have great education here [in the county] but a lot of young people don't have those connections so they leave to get jobs elsewhere.

"To have sustainable growth for the whole of the county, encouraging students to come back because they've met good businesses, is a good thing," she added.

"We're running a competition encouraging students to talk to the businesses and they can win up to 60 work placement days at their schools.

"That's our business community here today looking to engage with young people and give them those opportunities, which is just going to be great for everybody."

A Year 10 Gloucester Academy student told the BBC the day had been a "big opportunity".

Keith said: "We can learn about companies and all that, so in the future we have an opportunity to get jobs."

Another student from the academy, who had spoken to business representatives from Laithwaites Wine, said she had "learned a lot".

Dana said: "We spoke a lot about how they have about 25 different departments on the job and I found it really interesting, it's kind of awesome."

Helen Pugh, from Laithwaites Wine, said the scale of the event was unheard of.

She said: "Career fairs normally last about three hours and there's probably four or five schools that attend.

"To have nearly 2,000 students in one place on one day with all of this opportunity is amazing."

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