Careers and Guidance

At National, we believe that everything our students do during their time at the academy should support and encourage them towards their further education and career aspirations. The academy offers a range of opportunities throughout all key stages to ensure that our students are armed with information, guidance and knowledge in order to make the right decisions about their future.

Provision

As students move through the academy, they will experience meaningful encounters with workplaces, employers and higher-education, as well as guidance within Personal Development lessons and the opportunity for guidance meetings with the Careers Advisor:

Year 7

Students will visit a local employer and will participate in a group meeting with their CEIAG Lead or Careers Advisor that will help them to reflect on their strengths, interests and long-term plans. Additionally, students will have an introductory assembly about university delivered by the University of Nottingham.

Year 8

Students will have the opportunity to visit the University of Nottingham to experience a day in university life, as well as a trip to ‘The Big Bang’ trip with the Science faculty to explore STEM careers.

Year 9

Students will visit our Sixth Form Centre in Hucknall for a tour and presentation about Post-16 options, as well as assemblies and presentations from the University of Nottingham. Students will also take part in a Personal Development/CEIAG Day where they will learn about consent, first aid, engineering and the armed forces.

 

Year 10

During Personal Development lessons, students will produce a CV and learn how to construct professional communications. They will also take part in ‘Industry in School’, where we take two days off-timetable for a range of employers to visit the academy and provide presentations, demonstrations and workshops about their area of work.

Year 11

All students in year 11 will have a guidance meeting with our Careers Advisor to establish their post-16 plans and create action points to support their progress towards those aspirations. Students will also hear motivational presentations from four key note speakers who will tell the story of their career journey.

Measuring the impact of the careers programme

There are a number of tools we use to measure and evaluate how effective our careers programme is, many of which we use on a regular basis throughout the year. We regularly complete and run a report called Compass, which allows us to measure the percentage to which we are meeting the Gatsby Benchmarks. Additionally, we routinely gather student voice, teacher voice and feedback from governors. Our programme is designed around and mapped against the Gatsby Benchmarks, so fulfilling these requirements is at the centre of our priorities.