Provision & Achievements
We are really proud of the support that the Careers team offers to all of our students and the way that our careers programme has grown:
Key achievements to date include:
- National Quality in Careers Standard achieved January 2022
- School of the Year Careers Excellence Awards 2019
- Second school in England to meet the revised Quality in Careers Standard, December 2018
- First school in South East England to meet all eight Gatsby Benchmarks in July 2018
- Nominated for Careers and Enterprise Company’s Careers Leader of the year and School of the year June 2018
- Miss Green invited to be a guest speaker at CEC Joining the Dots conference June 2018 along with Sir John Holman speaking about Gatsby Benchmark One – a strong and stable Careers Programme
- National Best practice award – awarded by Careers South West January 2016
- Quality in Careers Award – full Investor in Careers Award achieved with Careers South-West 2015
Gatsby Benchmarks – how we meet them
1. A stable career programme - Careers Leader in post, Assistant Head with responsibility for Careers and link governor in post. Student charter, careers policy and detailed careers team improvement plan and delivery plan in place, reviewed termly as part of the whole school improvement plan. Impact and feedback sought regularly by careers leader via evaluations, destination data, student, parent and staff surveys, focus groups and evaluations. We have a dedicated budget for careers and key information for students, parents, teachers and employers can be found on the careers section of our website.
2. Learning from career and labour market information – This is introduced to Year 6 at transition assemblies in feeder schools and on transition day. A minimum of 25% (often more) of the weekly Personal and Careers Development lessons are dedicated to careers learning this is enriched further through year group and needs based careers events and visits, talks to parents and students, articles in school newsletter and subject specific information and resources shared with teaching staff. We have a well-resourced careers library, produce a weekly careers bulletin for students in Key Stage 5. Our careers team helps students to make the best use of available information. Parents are informed about key careers information and events via email or letter and a careers bulletin is emailed to parents termly.
3. Addressing the needs of each pupil – We organise a range of specific events to raise aspirations and challenge stereotypical thinking across the academy. We target specific needs with events such as our employer mentoring, HAPs programme, young carers programme, college transition evening, Access parent and student coffee morning, alternative provision carousel, challenging stereotypes events and DWP Careers Academy Career Action Plans are added to SIMS and career learning is recorded on Compass Plus. Students are encouraged to recored their career learning on START, our chosen careers platform. We systematically track and analyse student destinations for three years after students leave and share relevant information with Bedford Borough.
4. Linking curriculum learning to careers – Linking curriculum learning to careers r-is included in our new staff induction and there is whole staff training planned for this academic year to promote and embed Careers learning across subject areas. Middle leaders complete a careers audit twice a year to track careers in the curriculum and a career learning logo is now in use. During National Careers Week staff complete career journey cards and career do now and lesson themes are promoted. We be promoting the development of ‘Careers Corners’ across the school which will utilise subject links to careers, relevant LMI information and HE options.
5. Encounters with employers and employees – All our pupils have the opportunity to meet with a range of employers at numerous events such as guest speakers, challenging stereotypes carousel, meet the professional events, mock interviews, assemblies, lunchtime stalls and external visits.
6. Experience of work places – We run a Key Stage 3 employer visit programme and Year 12 work experience week to ensure students have had at least one meaningful experience of the workplace by the end of Key Stage 4 and Key Stage 5.
7. Encounters with further and higher education – The majority of students will have meaningful encounters with sixth form colleges, further education colleges, universities and independent training providers via careers evenings, open evening, college transition evening, meet the professional events, Your Future day, results day, parent evenings, careers carousels, PCD lessons, assemblies, lectures and workshops. By the end of Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4, students have the opportunity to attend a generic university visit and subject specific university visits. Students in Year 12 attend the UCAS Discovery conference, The National Apprenticeship Show and HE Expo, along with at least two university visits across Key Stage 5, targeted visiting lecturer experiences and subject-specific HE experiences and projects.
8. Personal guidance – We have two qualified careers advisers and one trainee. We are members of the Career Development Institute (CDI) and adhere to their code of practice. Parents and students from any year group can request a careers appointment and all students will be offered at least one appointment during Key Stage 3 another during Key Stage 4 and in Key Stage 5 all students taking unplanned subjects will be seen and appointments are available on request for all other students. In addition specific students such as those with an educational health care plan (EHCP), CLA, or HAPs will be seen more regularly from Year 7 upwards.
See our latest Careers & Enterprise Compass evaluation here:
