Frequently Asked Questions

Our charity focuses on giving state schools, academies and colleges access to the UK’s eminent, reputable figures from a range of industries—and to make it easier for these figures to give their time to young people in state schools and colleges. They are key prominent individuals leading society or industry today, from technology to arts to business, who are often invited directly or by a major industry body that works with our charity (e.g. BAFTA, 30% Club, Creative Industries Federation and more).

For more information about our speaker network and taking part, please see our Speaker Directory.

If you are interested in giving school talks but your background falls outside of this or if you are a different type of speaker, be sure to see our sister charity InspiringtheFuture.org and our Schools Hub which lists related organisations looking for other types of volunteer speakers.

Speakers for Schools is administered by the CEO, Jason Elsom, and his team, and governed by a Board of Trustees. Please see Our People for more details. The charity is kindly funded in full by the Law Family Charitable Foundation.

Our charity is made up of a network of leading figures committed to giving their time each year to state schools and to help level the playing field for young people of all backgrounds. Our ‘schools network’ is made up of nearly 50% of all UK state secondary schools, academies and colleges, all who have applied directly to our charity for the opportunity to host our speakers.

We work across the year to organise events during term time, now offering over 1,200 school talks and 500 work experience placements with top companies linked to our esteemed speakers each year.

Our charity specialises in helping speakers reach schools based not only on availability but also key locations and schools that are the most under-served and who will benefit most as our priority. This includes considering free school meal/pupil premium rates, high-deprivation areas and those which have poorer links to speakers and employers than their neighbouring schools.

For specific information on how talks are organised, please see our How it Works page.

For more information about how we help with work experience and similar opportunities, please visit S4SNextGen.

No, unfortunately we are unable to provide speakers for events outside of our core work, such as careers days, award ceremonies, teacher events, etc. We are also unable to offer speakers for non-school events such as at libraries, universities or community groups. This is due to the very high demand for our state school talks, the nature of our talks and our priority to reach a broad range of students (who might not take part in extra-curricular events).

We do on occasion form national partnerships with large national school networks and/or other charities to host special one-off events. If you are enquiring about a schools partnership please contact: team@speakers4schools.org