Careers Development Plan

St Alban's Catholic High School seeks to offer a broad and effective Careers Education Information & Guidance (CEIAG) programme to help our students make a successful transition to the next stage of their development, be this further education, vocational training, apprenticeships or employment.

The CEIAG programme provides support for students facing the challenge of choosing their career options and developing their plans for the future. Helping them to make sound judgements based on current Labour Market Information (LMI), their interests and aptitudes. It provides them with opportunities to develop key employability and enterprise skills needed to succeed in the world of work.

Our programme offers contacts with people from the school, employer networks, Further Education colleges, Higher Education institutions, alumni or other high achieving individuals to motivate students to think beyond their immediate experiences and encourage them to consider a broader and more ambitious range of career options.

Our programme provides all students from Year 7 to 13 with opportunities for self-development, knowledge of careers, career management, the world of work and the development of employability skills.

Objectives

We have a duty to ensure all registered students at the school are provided with impartial, independent guidance from Years 7 to 13. CEIAG is an integral part of the curriculum and is delivered across all subjects in a variety of lessons and activities.

In order for our students to be considered the employee of choice for local and national employers we aim for students to achieve a number of outcomes by the end of their time with the school:

• Know how to access and analyse information about local and national job opportunities. Understand the range of opportunities available and the variety of routes into different careers.
• Understand different businesses and the sectors to which they belong, developing a general understanding of the world of work.
• Gain experiences and insight into real life working practices and environments.
• Recognise their strengths and preferences to help them make informed decisions. Identify areas of development in order to achieve their full potential and overcome barriers to progression.
• Recognise the different entrepreneurial and employability skills that will help them succeed in the world of work. Have the opportunity to develop and build on these skills.
• Identify out of school opportunities to develop career aspirations, such a volunteering and work experience.
• Understand and evaluate the requirements and possibilities within Further Education, Higher Education and apprenticeships.
• Opportunity to apply classroom learning to real world situations, developing life skills such as resilience, problem-solving, decision-making and team building in order to overcome real life challenges
• Opportunities to understand the wide range of career choices that require success in maths and science, STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) for both girls and boys.

Measuring and Assessing Impact

Our annual destinations data suggests that our careers programme is successful in helping students to prepare for their future. Our Careers Lead, members of the Careers team and the school’s senior leadership team monitor and evaluate our careers programme. We use the Career & Enterprise Company’s ‘Compass +’ self-evaluation toolkit to evaluate our progress in working towards the Gatsby Benchmarks and to identify areas of development.

In addition, our careers programme is monitored and evaluated through our student surveys, feedback received from the employers and education providers that we work with, parents/carers, staff and the school’s governors. We use this information to review and refine our careers offer with key trends being reported back to our senior leadership team and our school governors. A designated governor has responsibility for overseeing the quality of delivery and effectiveness of our school’s careers programme.