Career Education, Inspiration and Employability Policy

“We will transform the lives of young people by providing bespoke and specialist education of the highest standard”

(Carla Chandler- Executive Head Teacher)

This policy summarises the statutory guidance and recommendations. It will then outline the provision of careers education, work experience and provider access.

Introduction

Melrose School provides a relevant and engaging careers curriculum which meets the differing needs and requirements of our Young People. This is developed throughout a pupil’s time at the school and is always supportive of their abilities, strengths and skills.

Statement of Intent

This policy is written considering several key policies and statutory guidance, including:

Framework for careers, employability and enterprise education - CDI (January 2020)
Careers guidance and access for education and training providers - Statutory guidance for governing bodies school leaders and school staff - published by the DfE (October 2018)
Education Act 2011 and statutory guidance for governing bodies, Gatsby Benchmarks of Good Careers Guidance (2018)
Ofsted Inspection Framework (2016)
DfE’s Principles of good practice- section 10 of the statutory guidance

The careers policy describes the planned provision in Melrose School to enable young people to learn about careers, learning and employability so that they can manage their own development and make life choices and decisions that will benefit their own wellbeing and contribute to the wellbeing of others.

Aims, Commitment and Vision

“As an SEMH secondary school, our aim is for all our young people to leave school ready to move into the next phase of their lives”

(Alex Leng- Head of Melrose)

We have high and challenging expectations of our Young People and place achieving their full potential at the heart of our educational aspirations. We aim to support the ambitions of our Young People and to support them through unbiased information, advice and guidance based on their individual needs.

We pride ourselves in our commitment to educating the whole person and helping our students to understand the importance of responsibility compassion, competition, fairness and honesty in all things that they do.

Our planned and progressive careers, employability/work related, enterprise programme is provided through tutorial time, assemblies, curriculum activities in PDW, SMSC provision, cross curriculum and specific career events with differentiated arrangements for all year groups.

At Melrose School we are committed to:

Providing our young people with well-rounded experiences
Develop personal characteristics such as social skills, communication, independence and resilience
Prepare our young people for the transition to life after Melrose
Working in partnership with external guidance providers to ensure that our young people have access to impartial ad unbiased guidance about education, employment or training at relevant transition points.

Gatsby Benchmarks

The 8 Gatsby Benchmarks are a framework for good careers guidance developed to support schools in providing students with the best possible careers’ information, education, advice and guidance. Of 8 guidelines about what makes the best careers provision in schools and colleges. They form part of the Government’s Career Strategy launched in Dec 2017. The benchmarks are based on best practice from across the world and are challenging but achievable. (http://www.goodcareerguidance.org.uk)

A stable careers programme
Learning from career and labour market information
Addressing the needs of each pupil
Linking curriculum learning to careers
Encounters with employers and employees
Experiences of workplaces
Encounters with further and higher education
Personal guidance

CEIAG

The Careers Education, Information, Advice and Guidance policy has the following aims:

To contribute to strategies for raising achievement, especially by increasing motivation
To support inclusion, challenge stereotyping and promote equality of opportunity
To encourage participation in continued learning including higher education and further education
To contribute to economic prosperity of individuals and communities
To meet the needs of all our young people through appropriate differentiation
To focus young people on their future aspirations
To involve parents and carers
To ensure that all students progress on to education, employment and training.

Career Provision at Melrose

All young people at Melrose have access to the following

‘Aspiring towards Excellence’ curriculum- Careers and preparing for life after Melrose is a fundamental aspect of our curriculum
Visitors in to school and offsite visits support our young people in developing their understanding of a range of different post 16 pathways
All pupils from Year 9 have access to advice and guidance from our CSW advisor
All of our young people in Year 10 access a meeting with CSW advisor and school careers leader to explore future pathways
Pupils have access, through GLA Careers Cluster, to relevant careers events hosted by Rinova.
School partnership with external agencies to provide STEM opportunities and careers talks and experiences.

Management & Delivery

At Melrose we recognise the importance of putting in place effective arrangements for the management and delivery for the management and delivery of the programme.

Roles and Responsibilities

All staff are expected to promote and support CEIAG throughout the school and signpost any students to the Careers Lead for further advice.

The senior leadership team are responsible for:

Incorporate CEIAG into all transition annual reviews for students
Organise CEG related events
Ensure that CEIAG is included in the school’s development plan in line with national and local objectives
Establish links with places of employment

The Careers Leader is responsible for:

Leading, co-ordinating and managing the provision of careers across all year groups
Network, maintain and develop employer links and relationships
Report to and advise senior leadership on policy, strategy and resources for careers
Liaise with Merton council and relevant Local Authorities on placements and H&S issues
Co-ordinate the contribution of partner agencies
Organise and evaluate CEIAG events

Subject teachers are responsible for:

Incorporating CEIAG into their lessons by developing and highlighting work related skills.
Raising awareness of education and career opportunities related to their subject area

Form tutors are responsible for:

Identifying students who may need additional support on their career pathways and make referrals to Careers Lead.

Staff Development

All staff are expected to contribute to the career learning and development of our young people in their different roles. To meet the training needs that arise from this we will regular training sessions CPD in regards to the 2019 code of ethics of the CDI

Funding and Resourcing

Funding for careers will be allocated in the school budget in accordance with the needs identified by the Governors and Leaders.

Melrose school will explore sources of external funding where appropriate to the needs of the students at Melrose

Teaching, Learning and Assessment

We recognise the importance of basing our approach to teaching, learning and assessment on evidence of what works in career education and guidance, we work closely with the CDI framework and Careers in the Curriculum by the CEC which emphasises the importance of creating rich learning environments and designing compelling learning experiences for our young people. Through dialogic teaching, enquiry-based learning, first-hand experiences and reflective learning are an important part of this. Assessment as and for learning is also just as important.

Information, Advice and Guidance

We will ensure that all students have access to independent and impartial career guidance to ensure they have access to information and advice about all pathways, not just HE. At Melrose school we are committed to this and will ensure that any career development professional delivering information, advice and guidance to our young people are qualified at level 6 or above and hold the professional standard of the Career Development Institute.

Monitoring, Reviewing, Evaluating and Reporting

The implementation of the careers programme will be monitored and reviewed by our Assistant Head and Careers Lead. All career activates will end with gathering student voice through completed evaluations. Feedback from these evaluations are used to inform future careers planning and provision, regularly feedback to Governors and allows impact to be measured at key points in the academic year. Gathering information from careers guidance meetings, PDW and collecting destination data for post-16 also enales impact of the careers programme to be measured throughout the academic year. Monitoring our young people’s destination for up to 3 years after leaving Melrose will also support the evaluation of impact.

Stakeholders and Partners

Parents/Carers

We recognise the important role that parents/carers have in their child’s career development and we want to acknowledge them as co-partners in the career development of their child and be supported in developing the confidence and capability to support their child’s planning and decision making, which will done by the way of stalls and meetings at our open evenings and careers events.

Careers Support Agencies

Melrose school have an annual agreement with the following support agencies:

Careers & Enterprise Company
Ask Apprenticeships
Duke of Edinburgh
Princes Trust
STEM hub
Crest Awards
SILC
Cognus
My Futures
Barclays Life Skills
START profile
Fast Tomato/Morrisby
Talent!no
EEP Robotics

We are also very keen on forming and building new partnerships with other support agencies and will be adding to this database throughout the academic year.

Employers, Community Partners and Learning Providers

We are committed to collaborative work with employers, HE, local learning providers, apprenticeship providers. We ensure that we maintain the principals of engagement to ensure that our young people are being exposed to as many options as possible. We aim to ensure that most if not all the information and qualifications on offer are labour market led, which emphasises our commitment to designing a career and employment pathways for our young people with and for employers, helping our young people on their employability journey and the expectations around respect for equality, diversity and inclusion and access to decent work.

Date last reviewed	September 2020
Committee Responsible	Keith Shipman
Designated member of staff	Temi Ismail
Date of next review:	September 2021