Simon Balle All-through School

The importance of excellent Careers Education and Guidance (CEG) lies at the heart of our vision to “create tomorrow’s citizens today”. It is vital that all human beings have the skills and knowledge to be able to contribute positively to society, make wise choices and feel a sense of achievement and self worth. As an all through school, our deep emphasis upon character building, the development of personal and community values, alongside knowledge and skills, is critical to creating a culture which promotes a relevant and first class careers education and guidance programme. This is our driver when working with our youngest children when aged 4+ as they join our school until they leave as young adults, aged 18+ years.

The Careers Strategic Group will monitor and drive the strategy to ensure students are equipped with the necessary skills, knowledge and guidance that they need to make informed career decisions at key points in their schooling. They will ensure students have high aspirations and understand the various employment routes and opportunities in society to prepare them for the world of work. Our aims are:

To develop students academic and soft employability skills to ensure they are employment ready. For example, problem solving collaboration and adaptability.
To develop students so that they can use career management and employability skills;
To create a stable careers programme to prepare students for opportunities, responsibilities and experiences in later life, and promote inspiring careers and enterprise activities;
Preparing them for the choices to be made at the transition ages of 13, 16 and 18.
To help students make informed decisions, thus helping them cope with a challenging labour market;
To create a sense of self worth leading to economic and mental wellbeing leading to improved motivation, aspirations, attendance and attainment.
To promote social mobility for the benefit of students, their families, their communities and our wider society.
To challenge gender stereotypes, promoting the whole range of options which includes apprenticeships, T-Levels, degree apprenticeships, university, trainee roles etc.

Simon Balle All-through School is committed to giving high quality careers education and guidance, and ensuring that choices are realistic and attainable for each student. The provision offered includes the following:

Personal guidance and how to use labour market information;
Promoting the use of resources available on the Google Classroom platform;
Supporting students’ transition to their next destination, including CVs and applications for apprenticeships, higher education and employment;
Engagement with local and national employers;
Work Encounter provision
Monitoring careers enrichment and engagement, so that career link activities and skills have been captured on Unifrog.
Promoting careers education in the curriculum;
Ensuring students have the opportunity to access specialist guidance when making a change to their career plan.
Ensuring the most vulnerable are offered extra support and guidance to enable them to be equipped to make informed choices on future education and training provision.

The skills, knowledge and experiences that they have gained throughout their time at Simon Balle All-through School will enable our students to go out into the globally competitive world with the skills, attributes and behaviours equipped for the twenty-first century. They will discover what they find interesting and be passionate about. They will leave school with the information they need to make their next best step and the life skills for the remainder of their careers journey. They will possess confidence and have a sense of self worth, being empowered to make decisions and resilient to be a lifelong learner.

Careers Curriculum

‘Creating tomorrow’s citizens today’ means that it is important for our careers education to be interwoven through children’s primary years, as a foundation and springboard for the formal structure of careers education in the secondary phase. We believe in:

The highest expectations for students’ achievements in English and mathematics – it is important for children in key stage two particularly to understand that this will open the most opportunities in the future.
Providing an enriching curriculum, both through the main curriculum and through extra-curricular activities (perhaps hyper link this) – which all children will be invited to. The breadth of offer is intended to inspire, to support progression of skills, and to invite children to make a commitment to their interests.
Our emphasis on our values education supports children to fully understand the character virtues which they will need through their lives and careers. An emphasis is placed on ‘responsibility’, for example, and we promote students’ independence and responsibility for their own learning. Equally our high expectations for attendance and punctuality support preparation for the future.
The value of hope and aspiration teaches students’ to have broad and exciting horizons. Exposure to future careers is taught through every subject of the curriculum: for example, from Understanding the world in the Early Years (a focus is included on the emergency services and people who help us) to biology, chemistry and physics, to computing, to geography and the application of mathematics skills.

In the secondary phase careers education is delivered through our learning for life programme.

Careers Bespoke Activities

Gatsby

Using the Gatsby model we continue to develop a robust programme and experiences for all of our young people.

Our school values emphasise a just society and one in which we have the highest aspirations for all of our young people regardless of background, race or ability.

Therefore our aims for CEG are:

By ensuring a culture of high aspirations and the worth of the individual as a member of the wider community, to improve motivation, attendance and attainment and promote ‘social mobility’ for the benefit of all students, their families, their community and our wider society.
To help all students to make informed decisions, thus helping them to cope with a changing world, and a challenging maze of career choices
To develop a robust curriculum which addresses all aspects of CEG, knowledge and skills
To challenge stereotypes within the world of work

The Simon Balle All through Careers curriculum is shaped by the needs of individual students and so developing a strong dialogue with pupils is at the heart of our careers programme. Opportunities for advice and support will be tailored to the needs of each student. Consideration for SEND learners is taken into account and activities are differentiated to ensure an inclusive approach and equality of access.

Using the Gatsby model, and ever reflecting and monitoring for impact our provision includes:

Personal Guidance and how to use Labour Market Information
Promoting the use of resources selected available on Google Classroom platform
Supporting student’s transition to their next destination, for example, CVs and applications for apprenticeships, higher education and employment
Engagement with local and national employers.
Monitoring and tracking careers enrichment and engagement so career link activities and skills have been captured on UNIFROG
Promoting Careers education in the curriculum
Engaging Alumni to inspire students in their careers choices and pathways
Ensuring students have the opportunity to access specialist guidance when making a change to their career plan

Careers Guidance Strategy and Review Document

Transition

Monitoring & Evaluation

We ensure that regular monitoring, evaluation and review are conducted by Heads of Department, Heads of Year and the Senior Leadership team to ensure the regularity, quality and nature of the Careers provision across the curriculum. Appropriate dialogues and interventions will take place if issues are identified to ensure that all students receive their entitlement and that feedback and marking is having a positive impact on learning. This is done through

- capturing our careers enrichment and engagement on Unifrog.
- Annual review against the Gatsby Benchmarks using the Compass tool.
- stakeholders completing a Cross curricular mapping document against the CDI framework to identify any gaps.

Employers

Careers team - Roles and Responsibilities

Name

Title

Main responsibilities

Mike Moss

Senior Leader Careers Link

Strategic Overview

Mike Moss

Career Leader

Developing strategy, careers programme

Lucy Owen

Transition

Year 5-8 focus

Rachel Kirk

Vice Principal (primary)

Primary careers provision

Luisa Grandine

Guidance Adviser

1:1 interviews, tracking destinations

Russell Ford

Sixth Form Manager

WEX placements and sixth form careers provision

Steve Robins

SEND KS4 Careers

Teaching alternative pathways, work experience and mentoring

Amanda

SENCo

Co-ordinating EHCP and careers interviews

Rebecca Miller

Sixth form Careers Apprenticeship lead at SBAS

Focus on apprenticeships & Sixth form Careers

Chris Dowton

Enterprise Coordinator

Supporting employer engagement

Rob Moody

Enterprise Adviser, Senior Partner Ernst & Young

Strategic support around careers and links to international business.

John Wiggett

Link Governor

Overview of careers policy and link governor

Rosemary Iles

Librarian

Link with speakers for schools

Careers guidance is the responsibility of all relevant staff at Simon Balle All through School. As well as our key members below the Heads of Year and form tutors play a key role in promoting our programme and ensuring that students are prepared for their next steps. As a forum we monitor and evaluate the careers programme and policy regularly through the academic year.

In December 2017 we achieved the nationally recognised Investor in Careers Award.