Careers & Work Experience

Careers Education

All Year groups will continue to have careers lessons during Terms 2 and 4. Unifrog is the careers platform that informs most of our careers education and students and parents are encouraged to use the platform in their own time to explore options, opportunities and future study and career paths.

All students have access to the Unifrog Careers Platform. Year 7 students will receive their log in details after half term. We encourage students to use Unifrog in their own time as well to explore potential careers, courses and Universities and to record activities and experiences that improve their employability skills. Parents who would like to have their own Unifrog account to help them support their child can sign up here www.unifrog.org/code with the code ACEFparents – please set up the account with your name and email and not your child’s A link to a short introduction video is here

Careers Talks, Events and Assemblies

We like to make our students aware of all the pathways open to them and to this end we bring in training providers and employers for talks, special assemblies and events.
Find An Apprenticeship Site Registration Workshop with ASK Apprenticeships
ASK Apprenticeships ran two virtual workshops for our Year 11 and interested Year 13 students to learn how to register for a Gov.UK One and Find An Apprenticeship site account, how to search for vacancies and set up vacancy alerts. Apprenticeships are becoming a popular option for both Post 16 and Post 18 students. https://www.gov.uk/apply-apprenticeship.

Year 13 – Mock Interview Day
Year 13 got a taste of being interviewed when local business volunteers came in to support our event. We had volunteers from companies such as Equinix, Orange, Morgan Sindall, UCB and Cardo Group as well as local sole traders and entrepreneurs. A big thank you to all our volunteers including our parent volunteers! Students received helpful verbal and written feedback on their interview and CV. Our volunteers praised our students for being polite, prepared, enthusiastic and lovely!

Work Ready Club - Networking Event with SEGRO
Year 13 students attended a networking event at SEGRO on the Bath Road. They heard from local employers and business volunteers and had the opportunity to network making useful contacts with volunteers and peers from other local schools. Many LinkedIn details were shared!

Coming Up

20 Nov - Workplace Visit - Advertising Unlocked
Media and Business students from Year 12 and 13 will be visiting MiMedia in London to find out how an advertising/marketing agency operates. They will hear from professionals, get a tour of the offices, undertake some industry related tasks, find out about roles and routes in and get their questions answered.

In the Pipeline

• Apprenticeship& University Talks – Year 10 and 12
• Heathrow workshops -Year 8
• SEGRO workshop – Year 7
• Architecture talk/workshop – Year 9
• Careers Fair – Year 8 to Year 13
• Careers Talks – Years 10, 11 and 6th Form
• Army Careers Day – Year 9

Work Experience

Work Insight Days for Year 10 and 12 students
In groups of 30, students will visit a company site to gain an insight into the business through a series of interactive activities led by employees along with a tour of the buildings. Students will share their reflections via group presentations both to the employer and to their peers back in school. Year 10 will be going out on 19 June and Year 12 on 15 July. More information will be sent to students and parents/carers closer to the time.

Year 12
In addition to their Work Insight Day visit, Year 12 students will also get to meet local business volunteers during a Speed Networking Event on 14 July.

Own Work Experience Placements
Students in Year 12 will be given an opportunity to find, organise and attend their own placement work experience during CAS Week – 14-18 July. These must be entered on to the Unifrog Placement Tool in order to be authorised. Details will be sent to students and parents closer to the time.

Year 10 and 11 students are encouraged to find and undertake work experience during school breaks.

Careers Information, Advice and Guidance

Sadly, Adviza who have delivered our Careers Guidance meetings for the past few years have gone into Administration which means that they can no longer provide careers advisers and that parents and students can no longer access the Adviza Portal for webinars and information.

However, we are pleased to announce that Learning to Work will now be delivering our Careers Guidance meetings. We have partnered with Learning to Work for the last 16 years on a variety of work-related learning projects and events and look forward to continuing and expanding our relationship with them. We are especially happy that we will be able to keep our former Careers Adviser, Melissa, as she will now be working for Learning to Work.

Year 11 students should be thinking seriously about their Post 16 options. 6th Forms and colleges will start advertising their Open Events shortly so keep an eye on the relevant websites or emails/Teams announcements from Ms Turner with this information. We encourage all students to attend open days and taster days to help them make sensible and suitable decisions.

We recommend students make Plan A and Plan B applications to cover all eventualities. For example, if 6th Form is Plan A then we would expect students to apply for a relevant college course with lower entry requirements as a back-up; if students are interested in applying for apprenticeships then a college application to a linked course would be a sensible option just in case they are still searching come September. Students wanting to apply to college are encouraged to apply for more than one course/college to keep their options open. Please note that in order to secure a college place students must attend their interview and accept their place if offered one. Students are not tied into a college place – they can cancel their place up to enrolment day – but not accepting may mean the course is full if they try to get on it in August/September.

Year 11 students will be having meetings with Melissa through to March. 6th Form students will have meetings as necessary throughout the year, with Year 10 having dedicated meeting times during the spring/summer term to find out about Post 16 options available to them.