Speaking of pride, we are pleased to announce that we have recently been awarded the ‘National Quality of Careers Standard’ accreditation at gold level. Following a rigorous assessment process involving both staff and students, we received the news last week and it was gold! Our assessor reported that “This is an astonishingly high standard of careers provision – rated amongst the best practice I have ever seen. All aspects of a substantially innovative and vibrant programme are planned, evaluated and constantly monitored”.  A reason to feel proud, most definitely!

Several areas in the report commended particular strengths of our dedicated careers provision and how it is embedded throughout the PSHE curriculum.  Our broad range of careers signposting around school – on Brightspace through Career Companion, Kudos and displays – the careers talks which run throughout the year for Years 11, 12 and 13 students; our careers working party of students who offer student voice and drive forward careers amongst their peers and our enrichment days for all year groups that focus around meeting employers, employees and developing their employability skills, to name just a few.

From the 4^th to the 8^th March, we will be working alongside National Careers Week to promote careers across the school. Assemblies will be running all week to get students thinking about the range of careers available to them and tutor time activities will focus on the encounters that students have with different career paths every single day.

Also during National Careers Week, we will be taking a group of around 20 students out to Trent Bridge Cricket Ground for a ‘snapshot’ experience. Students will meet employees and employers from the various departments which help to make the business run and, on their return to school, they will become a ‘careers expert’ within their tutor group, where they will be telling them all about the different careers they found out about before completing a snapshot competition as a tutor group.  We are sure this will be a great experience for students with such an iconic local business.

Looking further into the future, we are running our annual High Level & Degree Level Apprenticeship for Year 13 students on March 21^st, following its very successful launch last year. We have 27 providers, including Boots, the NHS, Rolls Royce and Caterpillar, who will be there to advise and support all students who attend. In order to make the event more attractive to apprenticeship providers, we have also invited attendance from other local schools and schools across our multi-academy trust and are anticipating a turnout of approximately 250 students.

Year 9 will have an exciting day off-timetable on Friday 22^nd March for their Enterprise Day. During the day they will work in tutor groups on an enterprise task where they will have to be innovative, creative and collaborative before presenting back to the year at the end of the day. We’re eager to hear all of the brilliant ideas that they come up with!

Never quite satisfied, we now look to the future of careers in school and how we can continue to develop this provision for our students. We are always looking to make further links with employers and employees, so if there is anyone reading this that would like to get involved in one of our careers events then please get in touch - we’d love to hear from you!

Coming up in careers…

· 11^th February – Year 11 and 12 Media Studies Event

· 4^th – 8^th March – National Careers Week (Assembly and Tutor Time Activities)

· 6^th March – 20 Year 7 students head to Trent Bridge for a ‘Snapshot’ experience of the business with follow up sessions in tutor time and PSHE

· Thursday 21^st March – Year 13 High Level & Degree Level Apprenticeship Fair

· Friday 22^nd March – Year 9 Enterprise Day