Careers Guidance / Post 16

Pupils have the skills, knowledge and personal attributes to be highly successful in their future endeavours.

Brayton Academy is committed to ensuring that students receive first class guidance, support and opportunities that will equip them to make ambitious decisions about further education, training, employment and higher education. Our aim is to give our students the skills, knowledge and understanding to manage their own lifelong learning and career development. 

Our careers lead is Hayley Cotterill: [email protected]

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Our careers programme is structured around themes that progress with each year that pupils are in school:

Year 7: understanding myself and what options are out there

• In careers lessons (delivered in form time) throughout the year pupils aspects of the world of work, such as “work/life balance” and “what is entrepreneurship?”
• Our careers programme links directly to our resilience curriculum with a careers lesson at the end of each unit helping pupils to tie the transferable skills they have learnt to future job opportunities.
• All students will take part in a careers panel where they have the opportunity to quiz professionals from a wide range of roles.
   

Year 8: linking my skills and interests with potential careers

• Careers lessons in year 8 focus on the development of transferable skills such as creativity, teamwork, listening, problem-solving and leadership.
• Further education providers visit students in their applied resilience lessons to discuss how the options they have selected could lead to post-16 study.
• The National Justice Museum visits the school to run a workshop with pupils that enables them to get a taste of the courtroom as a workplace.

Year 9: what careers might suit me best?

• Careers lessons in year 9 focus on exploring different types of jobs in more detail, exposing pupils to a range of options that may be outside their every-day experiences. For example, STEM centred jobs and careers in the arts.
• In applied resilience lessons, pupils will be visited by employers in a field linked to the option they have chosen, enabling them to get a taste of the world of work in an area that they are already interested in.
• In preparation for KS4 students learn about what the different options for them post-16 (such as T-levels, BTECs, A-levels etc) entail and where choosing each one might lead them to.

Year 10: preparing for my next steps

• Pupils are supposed to draft and refine their CVs in a process that culminates in all students taking part in a mock interview with an external FE/HE provider or local employer. Students spend time in careers lessons preparing for and reflecting on this experience.
• Students also take part in a careers fair during year 10, and hear from local providers of technical qualifications. Links to these experiences are made across all of their academic subjects.

Year 11: entering the world of work

• In year 11 the focus is on ensuring pupils are making ambitious choices for their future that are right for them. All pupils will have a personal meeting with a level 6 qualified careers guidance counsellor to support them with this.
• From tutors track pupils’ intended destinations carefully and support students in research projects around where their current choices might lead them. Pupils who are struggling to make choices will be supported by their form tutor, head of year or through additional interventions such as extra careers guidance appointments.
• Pupils have a final opportunity to engage directly with employers by taking part in a speed-dating style careers networking event.