Careers Education, Advice & Guidance
Please be aware that this page is currently under review
Introduction
Careers Education and Guidance is a vital part of the educational process by which young people, from the earliest years, develop the abilities to make realistic and well informed decisions about their future. At Holy Family, we do this by:
- helping pupils to work out what they want from life and to identify the values that are important to them
- educating pupils about the world of work and options open to them, then assisting them to make vocational choices, considering long term changes in the job market
- developing pupils career management, employability and enterprise skills
- individual academic, pastoral and careers support from a range of staff, including our qualified careers adviser
Underpinning this are the following principles:
- supporting individual aspirations, improving attainment and ensuring positive destinations
- meeting the needs of specific groups including looked after children, young carers, children from economically-deprived backgrounds and children with special educational needs and disabilities
- working with parents/carers, alumni and education, community and business partners to meet students’ career development needs
- improving young people’s employability by improving behaviour, attendance and punctuality
In developing our Careers Education and Guidance provision for students, we have used the Gatsby Benchmarks.
Careers Contacts:
Margaret Evans – Vice Chair of Governing Body and Careers Link Governor
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Karen Parker – Careers Leader Tel: 0151 924 6451
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Fred Fortune – Careers Adviser
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Jan McKean – Inclusion Manager and Employer and Outside Agency Link
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Our Careers Education and Guidance Policy
Monitoring and Improvement
The content of this webpage is reviewed annually in September (Date of next review September 2019).
We measure and assess the impact of our careers education and guidance programme via following up our Year 11 and 6th Form leavers to find out their destinations (in case this differs from what was planned) on leaving. We gather feedback from pupils on the Character and Culture programme on a continual basis and evaluate this during the summer term of each year, as part of updating the Careers and Enterpise Company's Compass evaluation tool, with the support of our Enterprise Advisor. From September 2019 we will be using the Compass tool on a termly basis.
Careers Education
Careers Education is mainly delivered, from years 7 to 13, as part of the Character and Culture programme. Every year group has a weekly Character and Culture lesson throughout the Autumn and Spring Terms plus 2 full days in the summer term.
In addition to this, we run:
- assemblies (including extended assemblies) on careers related topics
- visits to employers and careers fairs
- ‘careers in the curriculum’ activities, as part of National Careers Week
- regular apprenticeship application workshops for Year 11s and 13s
Click here for our Careers Learning Journey, a visual representation of our careers programme.
We have mapped our Character and Cultureprogramme against the Careers Development Institute’s Framework for Careers, Employability and Enterprise Education (http://www.thecdi.net/Careers-Framework-2018), to ensure we are meeting all the careers learning outcomes recommended for young people. This provides more detail regarding our careers programme and can be found here.
For further information, please contact:
Karen Parker – Careers Leader Tel: 0151 924 6451
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Fred Fortune – Careers Adviser
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Career Guidance
Impartial* Career Guidance is an essential part of the educational process by which young people, from the earliest years, develop the abilities to make well informed and realistic career decisions, from what GCSE subjects to choose to what to do after GCSEs or Sixth Form, how to get a job or apprenticeship, and many other topics.
*meaning we do not recommend any institution over others, but make pupils aware of all options and institutions and allow them to form their own preferences, based on factors such as travel, experience on a visit, course availability etc.
Year 11, 12 and 13 pupils all have at least one guidance interview per year with our qualified (QCG, Postgraduate Diploma in Career Guidance, NVQ4 in Learning Development and Support Services) careers adviser, Dr Fred Fortune.
Pupils in any year group can request a career guidance interview via Student Services or by emailing This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Parents/carers are also welcome to request or attend a careers interview for their son or daughter etc, by using the same email address or ringing and speaking to anyone from Student Services.
In addition to this, our Careers Adviser is available at parents evenings from year 10 and at the Sixth Form open evening, as well as being on hand to provide support at GCSE and A level results days.
Employer Links
We already have contacts with various local employers, which we utilise to deliver workshops, assemblies and visits. We are currently in the process of building on our past success in this, and greatly expanding our employer network, to provide a broader range of opportunities for our students, knowing the great value that employer contact has, in developing young people’s aspirations and motivation. (Please see these links for supporting research:
https://www.educationandemployers.org/research/employerengagementineducation/ https://www.educationandemployers.org/research/its-who-you-meet-why-employer-contacts-at-school-make-a-difference-to-the-employment-prospects-of-young-adults/)
Events that employers are now involved with:
- Annual Careers Fair (with ‘speed-dating’ element for year 10s)
- Assemblies
- Workshops such as ‘Employment Law’, ‘Budgeting’ and ‘What Employers Want’
- Mock interviews
- Work experience
- Off-site visits to workplaces and Careers Fairs
If you are interested in joining our Employer Network or supporting our careers programme in some way, how ever small, we would be very happy to hear from you. Please email Mrs J McKean at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Post-16 Options
Since the law changed, you have to be ‘in some form of education or training until you are 18’ BUT this includes:
- A sixth form
- A full time college course
- A part time college course
- An apprenticeship
(What it doesn’t include is a job that doesn’t include training for any qualifications.) As a result, there are many options available for after your GCSEs.
It is sensible to explore more than one option or institution, to work out for yourself, where is best for you, rather than relying on other peoples’ opinions. When looking into different options, there are some questions you should consider:
- If you’ve done it before, do you enjoy the subject?
- How is it assessed? (Do you prefer coursework or exam?)
- How does it differ from GCSEs? What topics will you be learning?
- How do your teachers feel you will cope with it? Do they have concerns?
- What have people, who have done this course/apprenticeship before, gone on to do next? What grades did they get?
- Where is it based? Is there help available with the cost of transport?
- Are there any opportunities for work experience?
- What GCSE grades do you need to get on the course/apprenticeship?
- What qualification(s) would you get from doing this?
Finally, do NOT choose a course simply because it looks good or because your friend is studying it! Choose it for the simple reason that you enjoy it and it could relate to what you want to do in the future.
For more detail, try this site: I Could.
For websites, telephone number and open evening dates for local options, click here.
Careers Education and Guidance in our Sixth Form
Useful Information and Websites
Take a look at Careermag for career inspiration or explore the CareerMap website to find out more about all sorts of jobs and careers of the future.
Please click here for our list of useful websites
Careerometer
