Careers

Careers Education, Information Advice and Guidance (CEIAG) provides a bridge via which students move not only to further education, vocational training or employment, but to the next stage of their development as members of society.

As part of our PACE Programme, we aim to ‘PREPARE’ students so that they have happy and successful futures when they leave ‘The Whitby’, providing opportunities to develop key employability skills, which are highly valued by employers, colleges and universities, is crucial in our aim to successfully equip all students with the necessary skills to enable them to become successful in all areas of their lives, both now and in the future. 

By engaging parents and carers, employers and the local community our aim is for every child to fulfil their potential and be inspired to achieve a successful future, develop high aspirations and be ambitious.  This will be achieved through a programme of high-quality activities, advice and guidance.

We are proud to be part of the Cheshire and Warrington Pledge, where we work closely with the Careers and Enterprise Company to further expand and improve our careers provision within the school.    

The role of the Careers and Enterprise Company is to link schools and colleges to local employers to help them deliver world class careers support for all young people by building networks, supporting Careers Leaders in school and using the Gatsby Benchmarks as a best practice standard. 

At The Whitby High School CEIAG means your child will experience the following:

• An embedded careers curriculum in tutorial time at different points throughout the year. This will be based upon resources from Unifrog plus our own personalised activities. https://cdn.unifrog.org/resources/412/Careers_learning_journey_11-18.pdf

• 1:1 career guidance interview with a professional qualified and experienced careers adviser for all students in Y11 and Y12/13. Students in Y7-10 can request an interview through their tutor. Students in Years 12 and 13 are offered a further careers guidance discussions and support with applications through our 6^th Form pastoral leader and their form tutor
• Work experience, students in Y10 undertake a one-week placement in March and students in Y12 undertake a one-week placement in June. Health and Social students also complete work experience placements throughout their course.

• Encounters with Employers: as a minimum, your child has to experience, within the school day, a total of 6 employer encounters. We aim to provide more than this over their time at The Whitby.

           2 encounters for students during the ‘first key phase’ (Year 8 or 9)

           2 encounters for students during the ‘second key phase’ (Year 10 or 11)

           2 encounters for students during the ‘third key phase’ (Year 12 or 13)

• Year 9 Options process is supported through PSHE weekly lessons after Christmas focusing on pathways and decision-making, assemblies, options evening and parents evening.
• Year 10 students attend local careers fairs and some of them also Secondary College experience at Cheshire West and East College in July.
• Year 11 Post-16 support through PSHE lessons focusing on pathways and decision-making, assemblies, 6th form Open Evenings, FE college talks and information on how to access Apprenticeship vacancies.
• Careers displays in each subject area to highlight possible jobs where the subject can lead. Careers and employability skills are embedded into lessons by all subject areas.
• Each subject area has a careers champion who links the subject topics with local businesses and external educational opportunities.
• Year group opportunities to work with our business partner Airbus in STEM subjects and also supporting our careers curriculum.

How do we monitor and evaluate our programme?

By having a structured programme of events, monitoring and evaluation allows us to ensure the quality of our provision and this informs our future decision making.

Monitoring activities adopted by The Whitby High School are:

• Learning walks in PSHE and personal development sessions in form time
• Lesson observations in PSHE and personal development sessions in form time
• Questionnaires – students, staff, parents & carers, external agencies
• Student voice
• Whole school careers tracking through compass+
• Work scrutiny in PSHE books
• We review student profiles on Unifrog

Evaluation activities are used to measure the impact of our careers programme and inform planning of future events.

Evaluation activities adopted by The Whitby High School are:

• Analysis of whole school careers tracking
• Feedback from personal guidance interviews
• Lesson observations/learning walks
• Work scrutiny
• Questionnaires – students, staff, parents & carers, external agencies
• Student voice including Futures Questionnaire
• We use feedback through Unifrog
• Destination data
• Review of our programme through the CEC Compass+