Henley Business School has won the JISC VC Partnership Award for work with schools and other universities through videoconferencing, presented at the BETT Conference on 25 January 2017.

JISC are a UK higher education, further education and skills sector not-for-profit organisation for digital services and solutions. The award commends the use of videoconferencing to provide opportunities to schools which would not otherwise be possible in their own classroom.

As part of the programme, ICMA Centre academic Dr Simone Varotto delivered interactive sessions to schools across the UK asking them to imagine themselves as CEOs of large banks and devise their own Brexit strategies.

The students came up with a wide range of ideas. Mark Rutherford School decided that they would keep operations in the UK for the foreseeable future due to the level of uncertainty, whereas The Corsham School wanted to push for freedom of trade with the EU and open up trade with growing economies. Since the sessions a number of London-based banks announced moving jobs from the UK to other parts of the EU.

“They really enjoyed it,” one teacher commented “I feel that this pushed them out of their comfort zone and made them look at something that was quite challenging for them”.

Participating schools included:

• Sir Thomas More 6th Form College, Nuneaton
• Caludon Castle School, Coventry
• Sir Thomas Wharton Community College, Doncaster
• The Corsham School, Wiltshire
• Mark Rutherford School, Bedford
• Ilford County High School, Essex

The award was presented at the British Educational Training & Technology (BETT) show at London Excel and collected by Henley academic Associate Professor Joe Doak, who was involved in some of the sessions alongside Professor Gavin Parker.

Find out more about Dr Simone Varotto's research