Careers Programme

John Cabot Academy strives to ensure that our students flourish and grow as young people.  When they leave us, they will have a strong sense of self, their place in the world and the agency to fulfil their potential.

We recognise the importance of the role that a comprehensive careers programme plays in enabling students to research ideas and make informed decisions, as well as an experience of the wider world around them.

John Cabot Academy students will have received a broad range of impartial and informative information, advice and careers guidance at various stages throughout their educational journey and a careers programme that will allow them to make well-informed decisions about their education and work.

The JCA Careers Programme strives to offer:

• Careers education embedded across the curriculum, information from a wide range of sources and 1:1 personal career guidance that raises the aspirations of young people and supports them to make informed choices about education and training options.
• Careers information, advice and guidance will be offered to all students from year 7–11 this is to make sure that all students access the support they need at all their key decision points.
• Introduce students to the world of work, post-16 provision and further education options, by inviting external organisations into the Academy to meet with students and offer information, advice and mentoring. Supporting students to research their ideas and understand how their studies relate to the world of work and ensure informed decisions towards realising their future success.
• Signposting to external agencies and useful websites to allow students to gain advice and guidance from a wide range of impartial and objective sources e.g. National Careers Service, local colleges and training providers as well as universities and employers.

What can students and parents / carers expect from our career program?

• Collaboration with outside agencies/partners that enables capacity and uses the expertise available. Whole staff team approach enables students to understand their part in the wider community and learn how to successfully gain meaningful and fulfilling employment.
• Good quality, up to date, labour market intelligence for students to access.
• Careers guidance; impartial and objective when offering advice and individual 1-to-1 career guidance – with the opportunity for parents / carers to be a part of meetings where appropriate.
• The right support, at the right time, when choosing subjects, courses, apprenticeships and places of study.

Please contact [email protected] (for the attention of Steve Church – Careers Leader) if you would like any further information or an appointment.

The Gatsby Benchmarks

There are eight ‘Gatsby benchmarks’ of good career guidance within schools.  These are:

1. A stable careers programme
2. Learning from career and labour market information
3. Addressing the needs of each pupil
4. Linking curriculum learning to careers
5. Encounters with employers and employees
6. Experiences of workplaces
7. Encounters with further and higher education
8. Personal guidance

Through of careers programme, we aim to ensure that all these benchmarks have been well-met during a student’s educational journey with us.  Our aspiration is to provide a meaningful careers experience within a stable careers programme (Gatsby benchmark 1) that is updated to reflect the ever-changing world around us.

Each year has a theme with activities and experiences that link to the different Gatsby benchmarks.  In addition, there are ‘careers weeks’ that highlight careers and allow students to appreciate the significance of careers across the curriculum and enable them to reflect on careers in different subject areas (Gatsby benchmark 4).

Year 7 – Aspiration and Positive Decision Making

Year 8 – Money Matters and Making Financial Decisions

Year 9 – Options, Careers and Enterprise

Year 10 – Money Awareness, The World of Work and Planning for the Future

Year 11 – Beyond Year 11 – Education, Careers and Employment

Additional Careers Education Information and Guidance will also be offered through additional events and opportunities that will target more than one year group:

Additional CEIAG

Careers Across the Curriculum

We recognise the importance of the profile of careers across the curriculum and strive to embed it in a student’s daily experience.  To support this, we will run three ‘Careers Weeks’ across the course of the year in terms 2, 4 and 6.  During this week, all teachers will be encouraged to discuss subject related careers within the lessons that are taking place that week to both raise the profile of careers in the curriculum as well as enhancing students’ understanding of where and how various careers fit into the different subjects that they are studying.

Careers Weeks

We also offer further additional ad hoc events to students to enhance their careers experience.  During the current academic year these include events / activities such as:

• Careers in Cyber Security trip (UWE) (Gatsby benchmarks 2,4,5,7)
• Women in Technology – employer led presentation (in school – year 8 girls) (Gatsby benchmarks 2,4,5)
• Careers in Economics Presentation Employer led (in school – year 10 girls) (Gatsby benchmarks 2,4,5)
• Employer Visit: Virgin Media pop-up (KS4) (Gatsby benchmarks 2,5)