Careers Programme

Careers Leaders

Ms van der Weide, Assistant Principal and Careers Education Leader (N.VanDerWeide@harrispurley.org.uk) Ext. 3365 (room 121)

Amanda Duffy, Careers Advice Leader (amanda.duffy@harrisfederation.org.uk) Ext. 3157 (room T26)

Monitoring Evaluation and Review

Monitoring the development of CEG across the Academy is the responsibility of the Academy Leadership Team and will be co-ordinated by the Careers Lead. The Careers Education and Guidance Improvement Plan will be developed and updated on an annual basis and will drive the work of CEG in any one particular year. The current CEG Improvement Plan is available from the Careers Lead. The Teacher in charge of careers will be accountable for the effective delivery and progress made in steering through the Improvement Plans and ensuring that the vision for CEG at the Academy is achieved. Feedback on the quality of CEG provision will be gathered from a variety of stakeholders including: students, Connexion PA’s, employers and PSHE tutors. Under the terms of our Careers service Partnership Agreement we will also evaluate the success of the activities that were initiated through the Agreement and feed the evaluation into the next year’s Partnership Agreement.

Further Information Sources for Advice and Guidance

Gatsby Good Career Guidance. A report on improving career guidance in secondary schools which includes the Gatsby Benchmarks. 

Gatsby Good Practice. A website which shares good practice from the North East pilot of the Gatsby Benchmarks, and other information and support for schools. 

Compass. A self-evaluation tool to help schools to evaluate their careers and enterprise provision and benchmark against the Gatsby Benchmarks and compare it with other schools. 

State of the Nation 2017. A report on the careers and enterprise provision in secondary schools in England in 2016/17. It examines how schools are performing in relation to the Gatsby Benchmarks, based on data from responses to the Compass tool. 

Careers & Enterprise Company. The Careers & Enterprise Company brokers links between employers, schools and colleges in order to ensure that young people aged 12-18 get the inspiration and guidance they need for success in working life. Careers & Enterprise Company: Schools and Colleges. Connects schools to businesses volunteers and careers activity programmes.

National Careers Service. The National Careers Service provides information, advice and guidance to help people make decisions on learning, training and work opportunities. The service offers confidential and impartial advice. This is supported by qualified careers advisers. 

Amazing Apprenticeships. A website to make it easy for teachers and careers advisers to access the latest information about apprenticeships. 

Apprenticeships Support and Knowledge for Schools (ASK). A network of teachers, careers advisers and ambassadors who will promote apprenticeships and traineeships in positive ways to year 10-13 pupils in the North, Midlands, London and the South. 

Baker Dearing Educational Trust. Information on University Technical Colleges. 

Career Development Institute. The Career Development Institute is the single UK-wide professional body for everyone working in the fields of careers education, career information, advice and guidance, career coaching, career consultancy and career management. It offers affiliate and individual membership to schools which includes free CPD webinars, regular digital newsletters, a quarterly magazine, online networking groups and training at a preferential rate. 

Career Development Institute Framework for careers, employability and enterprise education. A framework of learning outcomes to support the planning, delivery and evaluation of careers, employability and enterprise education for children and young people. 

UK Register of Career Development Professionals. The single national point of reference for ensuring and promoting the professional status of career practitioners. 

Quality in Careers Standard. The Quality in Careers Standard in the national quality award for careers education, information, advice and guidance. 

Find an Apprenticeship. Search and apply for an apprenticeship in England. 

LMI for All. An online data portal, which connects and standardises existing sources of high quality, reliable labour market information (LMI) with the aim of informing careers decisions. This data is made freely available via an Application Programming Interface (API) for use in websites and applications. 

STEM Ambassadors. A nationwide network of over 30,000 volunteers from a wide range of employers, who engage with young people to provide stimulating and inspirational informal learning activities in both school and non-school settings 

Studio Schools Trust. The organisation that unites all Studio Schools, acting as a linking point between Studio Schools, enabling the sharing of best practice as well as providing advice and curriculum support. 

Unistats. The official website for comparing UK higher education undergraduate course data. The site includes information on university and college courses, Teaching Excellence and Student Outcomes Framework (TEF) ratings, student satisfaction scores from the National Student Survey, employment outcomes and salaries after study and other key information for prospective students. 

Your Daughter’s Future. A careers toolkit for parents.

Upcoming Events

Are you looking for a Career? Looking for the right career can often be time-consuming and frustrating. The Croydon Careers Fair will offer candidates from all backgrounds, experience and education level the opportunity to speak to an abundance of local employers, all in one place. There will be a wide variety of different organisations attending, alongside a wide variety of roles being offered. Online applications can be very time consuming – by attending you get to skip this process and directly speak to the organisation! This gives you the chance to ask as many questions as you like and find out anything you want to know about the company you could potentially be starting a Career with.The Croydon Careers Fair will take place on the 16th November from 10:00 – 14:00, at Croydon Conference Centre.No pre-registration is required, you can just turn up on the day – however, you can find out more and register your interest here.The first 100 attendees.

Get Involved

Barclays Life Skills https://barclayslifeskills.com/

Youth Employment https://www.youthemployment.org.uk/

Year 9 DivINC http://wearedivinc.com/ 

KS4/5 Art Taster Days https://www.unitasterdays.com/eventDetails.aspx?ID=57542 

Careers Plan

Destinations

As one of the key indicators in the Ofsted Framework, the collation and effective evaluation of Destination data for all of our students is of paramount importance. Students are each given one-to-one interviews with our Careers Advisor to help ensure that they are fully equipped to make these important life choices and the data from these sessions is tracked, checked and support plans with added help are put in place to maintain high expectations for each individual’s future.

Higher Education Opportunities

Our Higher Education Opportunities sessions are designed to help students make their final decisions about which pathway they plan to follow and give them invaluable advice about to successfully tackle what is largely considered to be the one of the most difficult transitions in education.

These sessions are supported by our sixth form prefects who can answer questions and provide first-hand experience of this step of our GCSE student's education; what are they aiming for? We hope that they learnt a great deal form the sessions and now are able to intelligently reflect on their choices and if necessary make appropriate changes. 

Harris Higher Education Programme Booklet

The Harris Higher Education Programme Booklet can be downloaded below.  The aim of this new booklet is to remind Year 11 students about some of the key points about university education and other options and to take you through the Harris Sixth Form application process.  It is written for Year 11 students, parents and the wider family as well as tutors and staff.

Mock Interview Sessions

The Academy runs mock interview sessions for Year 11 and Sixth Form students each year.  The students have the opportunity to sit down with representatives from external agencies and businesses and discuss their plans for the future and what they feel they can offer prospective employers.  Below are images from this year's sessions.

STEM Careers Day at UCL

Each year, UCL hosts a Careers Day for Year 10 and Year 11 students, with the aim of introducing students to new and exciting careers in STEM subjects. STEM subjects include the fields of Science, Medicine, Engineering and Finance and the event is a fantastic opportunity for our students to talk to representatives from each of those sectors.

Participants can expect to learn what it takes to start a career in each field and how universities such as UCL can help them to achieve their goals. We will continue to give our students the opportunity to attend this event, as we believe it offers a valuable insight into fields young people may not otherwise get the chance to experience.

UCAS Report

In the 2015/16 Year 13 cohort, out of the Harris Federation Purley had:

• the joint highest % of students per entire cohort that were placed at university (83%)
• the joint second highest % of students who applied to UCAS going to Russell Group universities (16%)
• by far the highest % of students going to their first choice universities (75%)

Year 12 Career Survey

Complete the survey here.

Year 13 Career Survey

Complete the survey here.

Careers Delivery Plan

Careers Policy Documents

Please navigate to our Key Documents section to find our policies on careers.

Paul Jacobs - Chair of Governors
Date: January 2018
Date of next review: January 2020