Careers Programme
Overview
At Ranelagh we are committed to ensuring that all students are able to explore career pathways, have access to impartial careers advice and guidance and opportunities to meet employers and higher education providers.
Our careers provision and programme are constantly evolving to expand the opportunities for students to explore a wide range of options for the future. Provision is based on the Gatsby Benchmarks, as recommended in the DfE’s Statutory Careers Guidance (January 2023).
The 8 Gatsby Benchmarks are as follows:
1. A stable careers programme
2. Learning from career and labour market information
3. Addressing the needs of each student
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
How_we_meet_the_Gatsby_Benchmarks.pdfThe Provider Access Statement below gives further information about careers education at Ranelagh School
Ranelagh_Futures_Fair_Invite_2024.pdf
The sections below give further information about careers education at Ranelagh, as well as providing a range of links and resources for students and parents to explore.
Students, parents and carers, teachers and employers may access information about the careers programme from our Careers Leader, Miss Bond: hbond@ranelagh.bonitas.org.uk (01344 421233). The school assesses the impact of the careers programme through regular feedback, surveys and analysis of student destinations data.
Careers programme
The careers programme is mainly delivered through PAL (Preparation for Adult Life) lessons in Years 7-11, with provision at Key Stage 5 being organised through off-timetable sessions at appropriate times during the school year. The programme is designed to enable students to explore career pathways, develop an understanding of their options and identify their strengths and interests. In addition, students are encouraged to develop their employability skills with a particular emphasis on the attributes promoted in the Ranelagh Student Learner Profile: confidence, resilience, independence, curiosity, creativity and empathy. The Skills Builder framework complements the RSLP, through the focus on listening, speaking, problem solving, creativity, staying positive, aiming high, leadership and teamwork.
These characteristics are also explored and developed through subject areas and the wider curriculum.
Additional support and guidance are offered to students on an individual basis as appropriate, by experienced members of school staff and an independent and impartial careers adviser provided by Adviza.
An outline of the careers programme in the PSHE curriculum is indicated below.
Year 7
- Employability skills
- How to make a good careers decision
- The importance of teamwork and communication skills in the workplace
- Team-building visit to Oakwood
- Freshers’ Fair
Year 8
- Career opportunities and pathways
- Purposeful career planning
- Challenging stereotyping and assumptions
- Dealing with set-backs
Year 9
- Making decisions
- Option choices
- Labour Market Information (LMI)
- Local and national job opportunities
- Employment law
- Writing CVs and covering letters
- Personal challenge week
- Individual options interviews
Year 10
- Preparing for the future: introduction to higher education
- Advantages and disadvantages of higher education
- How to effectively research universities
- Introduction to the different levels of apprenticeships
- Researching apprenticeship options
- Preparing for interviews
- Making a good first impression
- Insight into industry: meeting representatives from different local businesses
- Exploring careers pathways
Year 11
- Post-16 options
- Information sources about local options
- Factors to consider when choosing post-16 options
- Introduction to the sixth form at Ranelagh
- Preparation for work experience
- Work experience placement week
- Individual post-16 guidance interviews
Year 12
- Visiting speakers from a range of universities
- Making the most out of the opportunities in Year 12 – building a CV
- How to make decisions about university choices
- Introduction to higher level and degree apprenticeships
- Year group visit to Royal Holloway University; optional visit to Brasenose College, Oxford
- Preparing for Oxbridge applications
- Writing effective personal statements and letters of application
- Work experience
Year 13
- Individual support for students writing personal statements and preparing for university interviews
- Student finance
- Individual support for students sourcing and preparing for apprenticeships and employment
- Individual guidance for students making decisions about their university choices
The links below give an overview of the options available for young people at 16 and 18.
Parents and carers might find the following website useful; it gives suggestions on how to frame meaningful conversations with your child about the education and training pathways available to them.
Parents’ toolkit for career conversations
Labour Market Information (LMI)
Career and Labour Market Information (LMI) includes information on:
- Skills, career pathways and progression routes in the local labour market
- Job applications and interviews
- Educational institutions, courses, qualifications, entry requirements and cost
- Professional bodies
- Employment sectors, employers, jobs, salaries and employment trends
- Jobs, training and apprenticeships
- Job demands and working life
- Financial planning
Information about the labour market is available online, and can be used to check whether a particular career path is one which will be in demand in the future. It also provides useful information on salaries, working hours and practices, and common tasks in each field of work.
The following links and documents are useful sources of information about LMI.
National Careers Service: explore your education and training choices
Berkshire annual skills report
Skillsometer can help you discover what jobs you might like to do in the future. You will be presented with a series of statements. Select the emoji that shows how you feel about each statement. You will be given suggestions of jobs linked to what you most enjoy doing.
Careerometer can be used to explore and compare key information about occupations, help you learn about different occupations and identify potential careers. It provides access to a selection of UK headline data relating to pay, weekly hours of work and future employment prospects for different occupations, as well as description of the occupation.
Simply type in the title of the job in which you are interested and the widget provides a series of options from which you can select the most relevant to you. You can then look up another two occupations and compare. You can also select ‘display the UK average’ and compare the information with the occupation you have selected.
Career profiles
What job would suit me?
Profiles of entry routes and career pathways in a range of fields can be found at the links below.
UCAS advice about careers pathways
Careers in specific areas