Highflyers Publishing was set up in 1995 when we wrote One to One Skills for Tutors and decided to publish it ourselves. We can still remember our first order for 6 copies. Since then we have gone from strength to strength. Our original aim was to publish resources that we believed would make a difference. User friendly for careers advisers and teachers, educational but also fun for students - and it's what we’re still about.
We are particularly proud of our special needs range of products which has continued to grow thanks to feedback and prompting from loyal customers. We are also pleased that our post 16 careers resources have had such a tremendous impact in that sector and that the training courses offered to support them have been so well attended and received. Our faith in our wacky computer games has also been rewarded by organisations like Careers Scotland whose independent review of careers software led to the purchase and use of three of our programmes throughout Scotland. Our resources aimed at teaching Labour Market Information in a fun way, we feel, make an important contribution to that aspect of careers work.
We produce all our resources either through our own efforts or by working collaboratively with other experts in the field. As a result of this, our products take a long time to develop. It is surprising how hard it is to make things easy for other people to use. It also takes time to dream up and trial activities and design materials that will appeal to students as well as move them on in their careers thinking. Feedback from customers, however, seems to suggest that we are getting it right and we know our products are very well thought of in the careers world.
We have also been able to make links with other publishers around the world in that, four of our On the Spot products and Blox are now being published in New Zealand and Australia and we now publish two resources which originate from the USA. It is a pleasure dealing with our colleagues at User Friendly Resources and JIST Publishing. The recent addition of our blog has given us a platform where we can air our views and concerns about the issues facing careers guidance practitioners. We are a small company with a big dream. We want our resources to make a difference to people’s lives, both the teachers and advisers using them to teach and guide others and the individuals struggling to get to grips with their own career development needs. We hope you find the information you need on this website and, as always, we would welcome any comments and feedback.
VAT reg. no. GB729551022
Company reg no. 3746347 Registered in England and Wales
Company registered address:
Highflyers Publishing Ltd
25 St Leonards Avenue,
Stafford,
Staffordshire
ST17 4LT
Mike
Mike Shaw was born in Burnley. He grew up all over England and having done a degree in Fine Art made some innovative films with Arts Council funding. He then did lots of different jobs, including prawn packing, before moving into careers work. He is now married to Jackie and lives in Stafford. He has two children from a previous marriage. He is Company Director of Highflyers Publishing Ltd and responsible for the overall running of the business and product development and design.
Jackie
Jackie Hartley was born and grew up in Leeds. After doing a degree in English and History she was elected Vice President of her Students Union. She then moved into careers work and now works part time as a University Careers Adviser. She is married to Mike and lives in Stafford. She has two daughters from a previous marriage. Jackie writes and edits many of the products as well as delivering training and writing the blog.
On a daily basis there is just the two of us but we also make use of the services of a number of individuals including:
Tina Handford, Multimedia Designer: www.concer-tina.co.uk
Steve Bayley, Illustrator: