Levelling Up Skills With Our Community Team
- 12th Jan 2026
- Author: Elliott Langley - Marketing Administrator
When you visit the National Space Centre, you will probably spot our Space Crew, Catering, Housekeeping or Discovery teams busy keeping everything running; but just as much work happens behind the scenes across the charity. Our Community team works closely with local groups, schools and services to help young people build skills, increase confidence and gain access to opportunities they might not otherwise have.
But recently, the Community team had the chance to support two students from Homefield College through a tailored mentoring programme designed to give them hands-on experience, insight into different careers, and a valuable confidence boost. Homefield is an SEND college that helps students gain independence and build towards their future. The programme was funded by the Police and Crime Commissioner’s Safety Fund, helping make this opportunity possible.
I caught up with Lucy and Darcy from the Community team, as well members of staff around the organisation to find out how the experience worked, what they learned, and what their next steps are in their journeys.
From Careers Day to Mentoring Programme
Our relationship with Homefield College began with a careers transition day, where students learned about the wide range of departments that make up the National Space Centre and the different roles here. These sessions are an important part of the Community team’s work, helping young people understand the variety of career paths available and how their interests might fit into real workplaces.
But following the careers day, the work experience coordinator at the college wondered if it would be possible for two of their students, Jess and Alex, to come back and gain important work experience at the National Space Centre. They were not sure whether this would be logistically possible, but our team were determined to make it happen.
“We were really happy to hear that Jess and Alex wanted to come back,” said Lucy, our Community Development Officer. “We had a discussion about what we thought would be the best options and came up with a plan together. We had the capacity within our team to offer them something more in-depth, so we suggested bringing them on site for a mentoring and work experience programme.”
The team got to work designing a programme that would support both students’ individual interests and help them grow in confidence and practical skills, and then got the dates in the calendar.
A Five Week Space Mission
Across five Mondays in November and December, Jess and Alex spent four hours each week at the National Space Centre, shadowing teams as they went about their day-to-day work.
“There’s so much going on here and so many different teams,” said Darcy, our Community Engagement Manager. “It felt like the perfect place for them both to explore different roles. Once we understood what Jess and Alex were both interested in, we could tailor the experience to suit them.”
Over the five weeks, they spent time with teams across the organisation, including Marketing, Content, NSC Creative, Human Resources, Finance, Commercial, Maintenance, Security, Retail, Discovery and Space Crew, gaining a behind-the-scenes look at how the charity operates as a whole, but from several very different perspectives.
Jess’ Experience: Creativity and Confidence
Jess has a strong interest in media, photography and writing, so much of her time focused on creative and communications-based roles. Working closely with the Content team, she learned about photography and video editing, and spent time with the Marketing team exploring blog and article writing, website content and marketing practices. A big focus was learning how to make content engaging and relevant, something Jess is keen to develop as she works towards writing her own blogs.
One of the highlights for Jess was taking photos around the Centre with Claire, our Content Creator. “Jess wanted to know more about how I got into my role, as she already has experience in video editing,” Claire said. “So it was helpful for her to see what my day-to-day work looks like.”
With Jess having already gained a lot of experience with the marketing team at Homefield College, Claire decided to focus on photography. “We took one of our cameras downstairs and challenged Jess to capture some photos of our Christmas decorations, which got us all feeling festive! We then spent some time talking through the editing process and going through how best to use a software called Lightroom to improve the images. This allowed Jess the chance to have a go at editing her own photos and experiencing the whole process form start to finish.”
One of Jess’ beautiful images was used as the cover photo on our Facebook page over the Christmas period, which is a fantastic achievement and a great addition to her creative portfolio.
Next, Jess got to spend time with our HR team, giving her a chance to talk through her next steps after college. These sessions covered how to build a strong portfolio for applications, as well as what reasonable adjustments applicants can ask for and expect during recruitment and onboarding; practical advice that Jess found incredibly helpful in launching her career.
“I’m glad I got to experience different aspects of digital media externally as I’ve learnt more valuable skills that’ll help me expand my own digital media knowledge in an unexpected place.” - Jess
Alex’s Experience: A Glimpse Behind the Scenes
Meanwhile, Alex was keen to understand how things work at the National Space Centre; what happens “on the ground” every day in our galleries, and in the areas that the general public do not usually get to see.
With that in mind, Alex’s programme was tailored so that he got to spend a lot of time with Space Crew, learning how the Centre operates day-to-day. This included touring our galleries, learning how to report faults within exhibitions when they occasionally occur, and understanding the essential role that fire wardens play in ensuring that our visitors are safe.
But Alex’s skills were put to the test when he went to scan one of our QR codes and it did not work like it should. “We have a system where we check every exhibit in the galleries and scan a correlating QR code on a tablet,” said one member of Space Crew. “This then gets reported to the Technical team in real-time, so any faults get flagged as fast as possible. But on this day it just so happened that the actual QR itself had a fault and was not reporting correctly, which is absolutely typical!”
Alex rose to the challenge and went upstairs to report the issue to the IT team, putting his problem-solving skills into action and making sure that the issue got dealt with as soon as possible so that things were back up and running again. Another Monday saw Alex working with the Maintenance team, seeing how repairs are carried out when things around the Centre need to be looked after.
During other sessions, Alex joined the Security team, where he had an ID badge made, learned how CCTV systems work, and saw how the building is opened and closed each day. He also spent time in the Shop with the Retail team, learning how pricing works and how to use a pricing gun. And for a fun challenge, Alex got to take part in the Discovery team’s ‘astronaut training’ activity in the galleries, to finding out whether he has what it takes to be an astronaut.
“I’ve learnt about all the different job roles and working with security was one of my favourite parts as I got to make my own ID badge and this has been the best work experience ever” - Alex
What is Next for Jess and Alex?
Both students are leaving Homefield College this academic year and are exploring a range of options. Both are looking into further study and work opportunities linked to their interests, now with greater confidence, experience and a clearer understanding of the workplace. We have no doubt that both have an exciting future ahead of them and wish them nothing but the best.
“I have enjoyed my work experience here and I would quite like to continue working inside of a shop. I have enjoyed helping and serving customers. I would like to thank Darcy and Lucy for giving me this opportunity.” – Alex
“I have expanded my digital media knowledge that I thought couldn’t go further than it was. It was nice to learn a bit about the photography side which lead me to taking a photograph that has been put on the banner for the Facebook page. and being shown all about the creation of Ziggy, the little astronaut.” - Jess
Supporting Our Community Work
As a Charity, the National Space Centre has very limited resources, so opportunities like this mentoring programme can only be offered where possible. Support from partners, including funding from the Police and Crime Commissioner’s Safety Fund, plays a vital role in making these experiences possible.
You can help support our community work by sponsoring a package when booking a meeting room, conference or dinner at the Centre, or by making a donation to the charity.
Every contribution helps us continue creating meaningful opportunities for people in our local community.
