2024/2025 BBC Bitesize Schools Tour

The Bitesize Careers Tour is entering its 6th successive run and has become a flagship BBC event that supports secondary school students across the UK in their career endeavours.

The IMechE will be supporting the 2024/2025 BBC Bitesize Schools Tour, which will run from September 2024 through to January2025. IMechE members will be invited to take part in the BBC’s flagship BBC Bitesize Schools Tour and represent the engineering profession to in front of 125,000 secondary school children across the country. This will help us to raise the profile of engineering, inform and inspire young people and build an engineering talent pipeline.

If you are interested in taking part, send a short video clip telling us about yourself and why you are passionate about outreach to education@imeche.org  by 6 August (recruitment for later tour dates will be ongoing).

Participation is in person (expenses will be reimbursed by the IMechE) and preference is given to people who are based locally. Members at all levels will be considered and in particular we would like to encourage Young Members to consider putting themselves forward.

What we want to achieve

BBC Bitesize will visit over 125,000 secondary school students across the UK from September 2024 to January 2025. We aim to visit a different secondary school each day (tues-fri) and will run 4 x 1 hour sessions in each school. Each 1 hour session is led by an experienced BBC presenter, who speaks to three professionals from the local area about their career path covering topics such as; relevant qualifications, career progression, advice on work experience, and key soft skills for the workplace. The sessions are interactive and include a Q&A session where students can ask questions about the panellists’ careers, but they will not be recorded or televised.

What we are looking for

We are looking for panellists who have a passion for their industry and for inspiring young people. That doesn’t mean you have to be the loudest or most confident in the room, we are just looking for people who students can relate to; local people who are open with their experiences. Ultimately, we want each panel to reflect young diverse individuals from the area, and showcase a range of different career paths. For example, one panellist may have known what they wanted to do from a young age and followed the traditional university route, whilst another panellist may have left school unsure of their career path and ‘fallen’ into a role that they now love.

Panellists are welcome to join us for a day, multiple days, or a full week. Ideally, we are looking for panellists currently based in the areas we are visiting.