Careers Education and Guidance
Intent
Our Vision
Our vision at Nethergate Academy is to support pupils in developing the knowledge and skills they need to progress into adulthood and reach their full potential.
We aim to broaden pupils’ horizons, challenge stereotypes and discrimination, increase opportunities and raise aspirations, enabling all pupils to say ‘I can’.
A ‘career’ can be defined as ‘a path or progress through life’. At Nethergate Academy, we define ‘careers’ as preparing our pupils for the next stepping stone along that path. For some pupils, this may mean college and further education, supported employment and independent living. For others, it may mean increased independence in daily life, and accessing and contributing to the community through volunteering and/or adult day services.
Implementation
Our Careers Programme
Our careers programme offers pupils opportunities to learn through real-life contacts, community experiences and a personal development curriculum to suit the individual needs of pupils.
We aim to provide pupils with an understanding of the world of work and those opportunities available to them, so that they and their families can make informed choices about their next steps.
Nethergate uses both the eight Gatsby Benchmarks and the six learning areas from the CDI framework to underpin our careers programme, providing students with relevant careers education, information, advice and guidance.
Our Careers Framework
Pupils at Nethergate Academy are taught in mixed-age key stage classes according to curriculum pathway (we have three pathways-pre-formal, semi-formal and formal). Our careers framework therefore refers to key stage rather than year group.
Our careers provision and activities run in key stage curriculum cycles of two or three years, to ensure pupils have a broad range of experiences and encounters. We use our careers framework to plan our careers curriculum across all three pathways. Outcomes are taken from the six learning areas of the CDI framework for primary and secondary. These learning outcomes are then used to plan smaller steps in our curriculum planning, catering for pupils’ needs across all pathways.
Some of our pupils following a pre-formal and semi-formal pathway may continue to work towards outcomes in the lower key stages if they have not yet been met. They will, however, experience encounters relevant to their key stage and have access to careers information which is age-appropriate and relevant to their next steps.
You can find a copy of our careers framework below, along with a link to our Careers Programme.
Impact
We assess the impact of our careers programme by:
- Using COMPASS+ to benchmark, track and report on our careers provision (termly)
- Aligning our strategy with the 8 Gatsby Benchmarks for good careers guidance
- Analysing pupils' attainment and destination data
- Gaining feedback from all stakeholders
The Careers Lead at Nethergate Academy is Katie Howse.
If you would like to discuss our careers programme or strategy or if you are a provider seeking access, you can contact her by email: khowse@nethergateacademy.org or telephone 0115 915 2959
