What are the challenges that your students and colleagues face?

As a Careers Adviser, I work with students from Year 7 to Year 11 and support them throughout their journey into post-16 education. I provide individual guidance meetings, support the Work Experience programme, work on school careers provision, and guide young people to help them make realistic future career decisions.

Challenges that the students face and I are varied; students require access to clear unbiased information on post-16 options, they need to have access to valuable real-world work experience, insights from role models and understand future employment opportunities. Also, as a school we need to meet the requirements of the Gatsby Benchmarks and ensure that we are offering a high-quality stable careers programme.

How does your institution help students and colleagues overcome these challenges?

To ensure that students are accessing clear and unbiased information about a full range of post-16 options, we offer a Post-16 Careers Fair for students, parents and carers. We invite providers offering a full range of post-16 options, including apprenticeships and technical pathways. This is an unparalleled opportunity for students to get a feel for what employers and course providers can offer, all conveniently located under one roof.  We also offer sixth form and college talks on qualifications, and individual guidance meetings with a qualified Careers Adviser.

ELBA – who we work very closely with – provides our school with invaluable employer workshops where students get to meet with corporate volunteers and be inspired by learning about their career pathways and achievements. In addition to this, ELBA organises a variety of Career Insight Visits (CIVs) for our students to attend, which provide real world exposure to work places. This can inspire career pathway decisions, develop new skills like networking, communication and building confidence. These events offer our school an enormous amount of support with achieving Gatsby Benchmarks, particularly Gatsby Benchmark 5 (Encounters with employers) and Gatsby Benchmark 6 (Experiences of workplaces) by connecting students with business volunteers for meaningful employer contacts and work-related experiences.

Do you have an Inspirational story/moment about you work that you would like to share?

We work closely with the company Future First who manage our alumni programme to enable previous students to share their career journeys and offer advice to current students acting as relatable role models to boost aspirations. One of our alumni related her career journey to me saying that she was now employed by a finance company on a graduate programme. She said she was inspired to enter a career in Finance by listening to a Careers Talk in Year 9 organised by ELBA.

What kind of support are you in need of right now and how might volunteering fit into that?

Careers provision in Years 7 and 8 is essential in order to develop student self-awareness and raise their motivation and aspirations, and broaden their understanding of the world of work. I would like to offer these students the opportunity to take part in an Employer Careers Fair. This early engagement with employers will help students to build essential life and employability skills and foster a greater connection between education and work. We are looking for companies to take part.