1. Student Advocates must prioritise their school work over this role. If you (or your teachers) feel that your workload is too much, you must pause your participation activities until you have more time. If this happens, please email your mentor who will be able to offer the support you need.
2. Participation in the FT Student Advocate Forum is encouraged but isn’t compulsory. When posting on the forum, you must not post any content that:
   a) belongs to someone else (such as copyright material);
   b) consists of advertising, sponsored or promotional links or content;
   c) is offensive, defamatory, threatening or indecent;
   d) discriminates on the grounds of race, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability or age; or
   e) personally attacks other members of the forum.
3. You must not act in any way that is harmful to the FT or your school.
4. You must only promote the FT within your school, not externally.
5. You must not use the FT brand to promote or endorse any of your other activities.
6. We encourage Student Advocates to be creative, but ideas which involve using the FT brand must be cleared with the FT first via Slack.

The FT can cancel your participation at any time if we believe that you have broken any of these rules. If we cancel your participation then you must stop all activity relating to it.

Schools can offer two curious and ambitious students a work experience opportunity at a prestigious news organisation. Improving engagement with current affairs makes for a more informed sixth form: 92% of FT reading students say the FT improves their intellectual curiosity and 85% feel they understand their subjects better from reading the FT.

This Programme is great for schools looking to demonstrate they are meeting the Gatsby careers benchmarks.

Each school may nominate up to two Student Advocates from Years 12–13 (or Grades 10–12). It’s up to individual schools to decide how they choose their nominees. Many teachers ask students to write a short application explaining why they would be a good fit for the role.

We aim to select a global group of advocates, reflecting the 130+ countries represented by schools in the FT Schools programme. To support regional balance, we're aiming for around 60 per cent of advocates to come from outside the UK.

Time zones will be taken into account when assigning students with mentors, who are based in the UK, US and Hong Kong.

Nominations must be submitted by 10am BST on Monday 13 October 2025. We appreciate every nomination, but as places are limited, not all nominated students will be offered a place on the programme.

Monthly updates will be shared with teachers by the FT Schools team, via the Student University Mentors, with news about the programme and their school’s Student Advocate.

100% of students in previous years felt they had some or significant development in their time management, leadership, communication and creativity and public speaking in their exit survey. Students will be able to showcase these new skills gained through working for the FT in their personal statement/CV, helping to make applications more impressive.

The Programme is also an excellent networking opportunity. Students will work with like minded, bright young people and the FT Schools Team. At the end of the Programme, students will be added to an alumni network of Student Advocates from previous years. Connections like this will be useful in the future for job/client recommendations.

The Student Advocate Programme is designed to help students build real-world skills in communication, critical thinking and leadership — while exploring how quality journalism can support their learning and future plans.

Advocates act as ambassadors within their schools, helping peers and teachers discover how the FT can support classroom topics, university preparation and broader awareness of global issues. They also take part in collaborative projects designed to make FT content more engaging and relevant for young readers. These may include:

• Researching how the FT is used or perceived in their school community
• Creating and sharing their own content inspired by FT journalism
• Organising discussions or initiatives on current affairs
• Attending careers-themed webinars delivered by employees from across the FT Group
• Taking part in monthly group calls with University Mentors and fellow Advocates around the world

We encourage students to explore the full breadth of FT content, from global news and opinion to lifestyle, business and culture. Whatever their interests, students are supported to bring these into the monthly activities.

The programme is entirely remote - all work is done either online or in school. There are no current visits to the FT offices.

The Programme runs from October 2025 to February 2026.

It is entirely flexible, but we recommend roughly 4 hours per month. Academic work should come first, and students should pause participation if their workload becomes too much.

Student Advocates will be placed in clusters with peers from schools around the world. Each cluster is supported by a Student University Mentor.

Mentors will lead monthly calls, share feedback and resources, and be available to answer questions on Slack. They’ll also send monthly updates to teachers, keeping them informed about the Advocate programme.

Mentors are the main point of contact for students, but others in the FT Schools team — including the programme’s Project Lead — will also be involved throughout.

The FT Schools Team will provide all the resources Advocates need to complete the set tasks, develop their own ideas for raising awareness of the FT in schools and support their personal development throughout the programme.

Student Advocate Alumni would be well placed to apply for the paid role of a Student University Mentor when they leave school and progress onto university/college, gap year or apprenticeship.