Employability
Sacred Heart Careers Programme
Sacred Heart School is committed to ensuring that all our students receive effective, independent and impartial careers guidance.
Sacred Heart students will take part in a holistic education whereby they will have access to excellent academic opportunities and at the same time be fully prepared for work and life.
Futures Week Newsletter - June 2023
At Sacred Heart School you can expect to have:
- A stable careers programme delivered during form time
- Work related learning trips to businesses, careers fairs and universities
- Raising aspiration lectures led by a range of professionals
- Speed networking opportunities with a range of professionals
- Work experience at KS4 and KS5
- One to one interviews guiding you on your future path at KS4 and KS5
- Awareness of employability skills and how you reach them through your involvement in extra-curricular activities
- Workshops to support CV writing, interview preparation, public speaking and financial awareness.
- Our Pupil Employability Programme achieves the eight Gatsby Benchmarks.
Provider Access Legislation (Section 42B of the Education Act 1997, as amended by The Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022)
Skills and Post-16 Education Act 2022- “All maintained schools and academies must provide six encounters with a provider of technical education or apprenticeships for year 8-13 pupils.”
Broadening student options and understanding of different careers and careers’ routes is at the heart of the Sacred Heart employability programme. Every year group completes careers booklets once a week in morning registration to learn more about careers education, including technical education qualifications and apprenticeships. The school promotes technical education and apprenticeships in all key stages during Futures Week in the Summer Term where students will complete a variety of careers workshops, meet employers and employees and plan their own careers through careers education. In addition, each year group completes employability workshops led by external providers throughout the academic year. Please find below a summary of how technical education qualifications and apprenticeships learning is being enhanced this academic year in each year group:
Year 8 - National Grid workshop. Students learn about apprenticeships and employment routes in the National Grid.
Year 9 - Metis Consultancy Workshop. Students meet employers from Metis Consultants LTD and learn about apprenticeships and other routes into engineering and construction.
Year 10 - Students complete a work experience programme where technical education qualifications and apprenticeships are signposted. Year 10 also complete a workshop led by publishing house Penguin: Random House in March during National Careers Week where different routes into publishing are signposted.
Year 11 - All Year 11 students have a careers meeting with an external careers advisor in the Autumn Term. Group 3 and Group 4 attend What Career Live in November to learn more about technical apprenticeships. Year 11 Pathways Day in January provides students and parents the opportunity to meet representatives from further education colleges and training providers to learn about approved technical education qualifications and apprenticeships. All students in Year 11 have a Futures Meeting or Sixth Form interview in January to plan their progression into further education or technical apprenticeships.
Sixth Form- All Year 13 students have a careers meeting with an external careers advisor in the Autumn Term. A series of Business Breakfasts and Raising Aspirations Lectures held throughout the year inform students about school leaver programmes and apprenticeships. All Year 12s complete summer schools and/or relevant work experience in July which often signposts school leaver programmes and apprenticeships. In addition, former students who have undertaken or who are undertaking school leaver programmes or apprenticeships, visit the Sixth Form in Futures Week to share their experience and guidance with students.
How the school measures and assesses the impact of the careers programme on pupils
Sacred Heart runs an employability evaluation called a compass report through the Careers and Enterprise Company. This measures how effectively Sacred Heart delivers careers education in relation to the Gatsby Benchmarks and provider access legislation compared to other schools and colleges nationally. This is done twice a year, at the end of the Autumn Term in December and at the end of the Summer Term in July. From the compass report, the Director of Pupil Employability and the Employability Coordinator develop a plan for the next academic year to consolidate and strengthen the employability programme at Sacred Heart and to address areas of development.
Sacred Heart also uses parental input and the student voice to improve the employability programme. A parental survey is sent out in the Summer Term for parental feedback on the programme. A series of newsletter items inform parents of employability events throughout the year. Students in Y11 and Y13 have the opportunity to fill out a questionnaire following their independent careers session with FutureSmartCareers which is collated and presented to the Employability Coordinator for reference. Individual careers session reports are recorded for each pupil on software called Unifrog for their reference. Sacred Heart is currently upgrading to new software from the Careers and Enterprise Company called Compass+. This updated software will allow all pupils in the school to complete an evaluation survey of the schools’ employability programme during Futures Week. The survey will be based on the eight Gatsby Benchmarks and provider access legislation requirements. This will assist the school in measuring how successfully it is delivering the programme in each year group. It will also allow the school to measure students’ responses in future with past responses and will be a useful tool in helping the Director of Pupil Employability and Employability Coordinator evaluate the employability programme at Sacred Heart.
A link to the schools’ compass report can be found here:
Date of next review, July 2023
Pupil Employability Information Booklet
Director of Employability
Mrs A Sparkes
0207 274 6844
Co-ordinator of Employability
Mr T Glasper
0207 274 6844
