Join the 360 partnership
Meet your own organisational objectives at the same time as helping to prepare the next generation for life, not just exams.
Let's ensure every young person is prepared for life, not just exams
There is growing recognition that young people should be prepared for life, not just exams. Funded by major partners, and in consultation with teachers and topic experts, our unique VR Skill City with support for in school and outdoor learning tackles this challenge head on. Find out how your organisation can be part of this and benefit too.
We believe our programmes are unique, delivering interactive and innovative teacher-led learning. Online, In school and Outdoors. Our Skill City virtual world is the start of this journey for students – where they learn in an immersive, interactive, safe and fun true-to-life world.
- Online. A 360 virtual reality Skill City where learners are presented with dilemmas where they discuss, decide, do and then deliberate on consequences. Our technology recognises the limitations of many schools’ IT systems and is designed for whiteboards and laptops.
- In-school. Support for teachers to embed skills for life learning across the curriculum and in every year group.
- Outdoors. Support to use the local area near schools for extended and practical ‘Learning Outside the Classroom’.
The benefits of being a 360 partner
As a not-for-profit Community Interest Company, we rely on securing significant support from partners including financial, in-kind expertise or providing us with resources. Join a growing, flexible and constantly improving partnership and:
Adopt a consistent common framework
Schools tell us that agencies have widely varying approaches, isolated and sometimes even conflicting interventions. Put a stop to all that with an agreed common approach and consistent messaging, whatever the topic.
Adopt best educational practice
No more scare tactics or lecturing. Instead, invest in an educationally-led, high quality, interactive programme based on core skills for life including risk awareness and decision-making.
Engage, motivate and develop your teams
360 is a growing and developing programme. There is plenty of scope for your employees to feel part of it, gain valuable experience and utilise their specialist expertise.
Join a cost-sharing partnership model
Why spend so much more just to do your own thing, often duplicating other provision and confusing schools? Create economies of scale by sharing core costs and contributing to a common schools platform for all skills for life topics.
Let educational experts lead your engagement
Ensure provision matches school need and is of a high educational standard. Poor quality resources are less likely to be used and won’t result in effective learning. 360 can support and add to your in house provision, or, depending on requirements, deliver it for you.
Maximise impact through transferable skills
You will have sector-specific information you want to communicate. But skills such as risk awareness and decision-making are common to many agencies and topic areas. Amplify your messaging by including it on our multi-agency platform.
Partner with an experienced team
We know schools and how to support teachers. We know how to integrate your messages and objectives into the school curriculum.
Positive, value for money PR exposure
We don’t do greenwash. But there are potentially significant PR and influencing benefits from doing the right thing in the first place. Gain the attention of decision-makers and meet your ambition for CSR and social impact by joining the 360 partnership.
Promote positive behavioural change
Would behavioural change in key audiences, service users or customers benefit your organisation? Work with us to embed your messaging into our holistic schools programme.
Remove resource limitations with a scaleable delivery model
Are your programmes labour intensive, limited by the time it takes your team to deliver them? Scale up the numbers with the 360 platform, engaging teachers with your messaging. Involve your teams where they are best utilised, in context, and integral to a planned programme.
Respond positively to 21st century challenges
Ensure your organisation is part of the solution to the challenges we now face. Address problems including safeguarding, safety, Covid-19, the climate and ecological emergencies, mental wellbeing and much more, using your area of work to bring learning to life.
Scale up to reach more audiences
By partnering with 360 alongside other organisations, you can reach many more schools, young people and other audiences than on your own.
We are looking for both public and private sector partners who share our passion and values to help young people develop their life skills. In particular, we’re looking for organisations that can:
- Make a grant or other direct funding to develop our programmes, new VR scenarios and in-school resources (£30,000 upwards depending on scope).
- Collaborate on joint funding bids for future programmes.
- Provide subject expertise, content and advice. Potentially provide resource to deliver in-school visits.
- Help with networking, contacts and new ideas.
- Work with us to develop new programmes, enhance existing ones and provide resources.
- Enable us to manage our business more effectively, perhaps through marketing and PR, delivery systems and back-office support.
- Sponsor local school(s) memberships to increase the reach of our programmes.
Working in partnership with:
Interested in partnering with us? Register your interest today!
What they say...
360 gives children the tools and confidence they will need to make positive decisions in everyday life.
Teacher and Eco Lead, Dorset
I like the 360 commitment to anytime, anywhere access, which is particularly relevant now.
Head Teacher, Dorset
The online approach, coupled with strong partnerships for face to face delivery as well, makes this concept invaluable.
Police & Crime Commissioner (Retired), Senior Lecturer (forensics)
A user-friendly resource that offers scope to move away from didactic teaching and to explore ‘real life’ challenges and potential consequences.
MAT Safeguarding Manager, Hereford
I like the way you can walk around the whole city and it’s not limited to one thing and after you finish the missions you can walk around and do what you like.
Pupil, 11, Northern Ireland
360 will allow individual agencies to combine their good work and raise the bar in delivery of safety and wellbeing interventions.
Schools Liaison Officer, Police Service Northern Ireland
It’s very fun because there are multiple choices and based on your options it can go a different way.
Pupil, 11, Northern Ireland
360 gives access to a whole learning environment in a cost effective way which Local Government should support.
Chief Executive Officer, Dorset Council
I like it because it teaches you lessons with having fun doing it.
Pupil, 11, Northern Ireland
Situations and scenarios are up to date. The product really does appeal to young people and is very user friendly.
Education Challenge Lead, Dorset Council
It’s like a game and you have pick the right decisions in real life situations but it’s fun at the same time.
Pupil, 11, Northern Ireland
The 360 platform enables teachers and leaders to engage young people and to highlight scenarios in a safe environment.
MD, First Bus Hampshire, Dorset & Berkshire
The missions were so useful because they helped us make good decisions.
Pupil, 11, Northern Ireland
Given the pandemic, equipping young people to be independent critical thinkers with the confidence to respond to situations in everyday life is even more vital.
Former CEO at Hazard Alley Safety Centre and now 360 Non-Exec Director
360 is really cool. It is super realistic and helps me to understand what to do when something like happens in real life.
Pupil, 11, Northern Ireland
The platform provides teaching staff with an opportunity to address challenging safeguarding issues with pupils in a safe environment and to open up discussions on difficult topics that equip learners with critical information on how to keep safe.
Co-Founder & Chief Safeguarding Officer at The Safeguarding Company (My Concern)
We didn't have a clue how to play at first, but then we showed our teacher what to do! It was lots of fun!
Pupil, 11, Northern Ireland
By young people working through scenarios that could be affecting their lives, it helps to improve their understanding of potential risks, consequences and ...decision making to enable them to make choices to keep safe and well.
Assistant Director of Nursing and Safeguarding and Regional Safeguarding Lead at NHS England
A child asked if we could do 360 again as soon as he came in the next morning, highlighting just how much the programme motivates [pupils].
Primary teacher, Northern Ireland
Even if the scenario had been something the learner had experienced before, it is still a useful tool as allows them to revisit the experience and discuss, and think about advice they might give to others about that scenario.
Teacher
Learners are excited by it and students are quick to pick it up.
Teacher
The interactivity of 360 alongside pupil-led learning [means that] learners can make choices in a safe environment.
Teacher
[360] provides an opportunity to ask PSHE-related questions without asking the pupil directly. [This] means [you] can see a more accurate picture of how a pupil may respond in real life – as it mimics a video game, it gives an insight to a more natural response.
Teacher
We've really benefitted from the whole class discussions. For example, this morning [we talked] about what risk and risk assessment is... what could go wrong and understanding how to stay safe. We've... linked [this to] school trips, walking home or going to the park... and in terms of... friendship groups too.
Year 6 lead, Poole
We talk to each other and decide which option we think is best. If we disagree on what happens we try one and see what happens. [Because you have to cross roads in Skill City] this is helping me to be ready for secondary school when I have to walk a long way past cars parked on the path.
Y6 pupil moving to secondary
I've learnt to make safer choices, to do what is best and what I think, not just what others think. [It has helped] me to have a clearer mind... sometimes [friends] make you do stuff you maybe don't want to do. But now I feel I might change my point of view and be more confident.
Year 6 pupil moving to secondary
I've learnt that you don't always have to choose the decisions that your friends want you to make. You could [make] your own decisions.
Year 6 pupil moving to secondary
Access to this virtual reality world will provide an important platform to ensure our young people are educated across a wide range of key areas, with the ultimate aim of keeping them safe.
Chief Inspector, Crime Prevention & Early Intervention Branch, Police Service Northern Ireland
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Frequently asked questions
You’ll probably have lots of questions and our handy frequently asked questions section should help. But we’re here to help, so do contact us if you want to find out more.
Phase 1 on safeguarding, available from Spring 2022, is appropriate for 10-14 year olds. That’s Year 6 in England and Wales or Primary 7 in Northern Ireland and Scotland, to Year 9 in England and Wales, Year 10 in Northern Ireland and Secondary 3 in Scotland. (We don’t decide on the confusing differences in labelling!). We hope to extend provision to the whole primary age group very soon.
Schools tell us that they are bombarded by messages from different organisations. They don’t usually have the time to research this provision, and so they often deliver less than they would like to in this area.
We partner with local, regional and national partners such as the emergency services, councils and NHS, to join up initiatives and make them easier for schools to access, with minimum extra work.
We then help by working closely with topic specialist organisations to integrate their messaging into our programme and help meet their objectives, adding value to their existing specialist interventions. Our platform then signposts teachers to specialist content, activities and visits through our curated resources database.
We believe partnership is more powerful than competition.
Our pilot was launched for 247 schools across south west England and Northern Ireland in Spring 2022. This provides access to virtual reality scenarios plus lesson plans and resources to help teachers raise safeguarding awareness in the classroom. Our partners ImpactEd are delivering a full academic evaluation with an interim report in Autumn 2022, and a full report in early 2023.
Subject to further funding, Phase 2 will extend safeguarding resources down to primary and early years. Subsequent phases will cover personal and community safety, active, independent and safer travel (including road safety), the climate emergency, mental wellbeing and much more. You can find out more about Our Plan here.
Alongside this, we are working with partners to roll out membership to schools across the UK. We are building partnerships to provide funding for membership where we can, but MultiAcademy Trusts (MATs, England) or other school networks can fund this themselves too. Member schools will be able to access all content regardless of how it is initially funded. Find out more and sign up your school here.
Phase 1 covers Safeguarding. For future phases, we will consider inclusion of any topic which we think ensures young people are prepared for life, not just exams. For the full list, take a look at Our Plan. If you think we have missed something, let us know.
Supporting the 360 roll out can be a cost-effective way for organisations to scale up their engagement and cut through with target audiences, interactively and at scale, to positively influence behaviours. For a full list of benefits, take a look at our Partners page.
NHS England and Talbot Village Trust have provided capital investment into the base virtual reality build and safeguarding scenarios for Phase 1, and Valentine Trust have supported core costs.
NHS Dorset, Devon County Council, and Police Service Northern Ireland have invested in a number of additional school memberships for the pilot phase.
Volume.ai and IT Support 365 continue to provide some support on a pro-bono basis in addition to paid work on virtual reality and IT systems. We are working closely with ImpactEd on our full academic evaluation and theory of change.
We are grateful for the support of a number of other partners for advice, and support with school promotion. For full details on partnership and its benefits, click here.
A number of exciting new partnerships are in the pipeline for 2022. Join us!