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Careers Provision Intent

Barton Manor School firmly believes that a full and varied careers education is both useful and enriching. The school will offer all students the chance to learn about and reflect upon their future career aspirations and employability skills through opportunities in the classroom, as well as through welcoming external speakers / visitors to the school. Barton Manor School is committed to fully achieving the Gatsby benchmarks by embedding careers education as a key component of the curriculum:

1. A stable careers programme

2. Learning from career and labour market information

3. Addressing the needs of each pupil

4. Linking curriculum learning to careers

5. Encounters with employers and employees

6. Experiences of workplaces

7. Encounters with further and higher education

8. Personal guidance

Barton Manor School is also committed to implementing the CDI Career Development Framework with a clear focus on the six learning areas for lifelong career development:

Growth throughout life
Explore possibilities
Manage career
Create opportunities
Balance life and work
See the big picture

Barton Manor School will use the following strategies to ensure the careers programme is strategically managed:

A Careers and CEIG policy, as well as a work experience policy, will be set out on the school website with the approval of the local governing body.
Regular meetings with the Enterprise Coordinator from the School Improvement, Secondary, Special and PRU / Skills & Employability division of the Education People. This will be an external quality assurance measure.
An action plan will be written by the Careers Coordinator each year which specifically links to the School Development Plan. The action plan will be evaluated on a termly basis, with targets to ensure a clear focus on improvement is set out during the rest of the academic year.
The Careers Coordinator will meet on a fortnightly basis with the appropriate member of the Senior Leadership team who line manages the careers provision to discuss the provision.
A separate careers budget will ensure that adequate resources are available for students to access.

VESPA Programme

In order to prioritise careers education from the beginning of secondary school, students at Barton Manor will follow the VESPA careers model, consisting of Vision, Effort, Systems, Practice and Attitude, each of these being completed across an academic year up until the end of Year 11. The careers provision will also fully support the academic and vocational pathways offered by Barton Manor School, with opportunities to explore university, apprenticeships and work-based options after finishing school. The VESPA programme is designed to offer up-to-date information, to challenge stereotypes and to offer students access to meaningful labour market information in an engaging way.

In tutor time students will receive a VESPA booklet which they will complete on a fortnightly basis in Year 7, 8 and 9, and on a weekly basis in Year 10 and 11.

Vision – Year 7 students will reflect on their vision for the future and what they want to achieve. This encourages aspirational thinking.

Effort – Year 8 students will consider what effort is required to achieve their goals, motivating them to see the purpose behind their studies.

Systems – Year 9 students will learn about the way in which the job market works, and they will evaluate the necessary qualities needed to achieve their goals.

Practice – Year 10 students will complete weekly employability sessions, recalling past knowledge on careers and looking more practically at skills needed for future careers success. This will also prepare them for work experience.

Attitude – Year 11 students are given the toolkit for succeeding in their post-16 options, focussing on clear actions that they can achieve. There will be a particular focus on skills and qualities needed in the world of work. Students have already logged on to Kent Choices and will continue to use the VESPA Attitude resources to fully establish their future plans in form time.

Careers Advice

All Year 8 students will receive careers appointments prior to choosing their GCSE options. This will support their understanding of why they are choosing specific subjects, and what they could do with these subjects in future.

All Year 11 (and eventually Year 13) students will be offered a Careers appointment with a level 6 trained independent careers advisor from CXK. As per the pupil premium pledge, PP students will be prioritised for these appointments first.

Students in any year group can request a careers appointment, and the careers coordinator can organise this. In the first couple of years of Barton Manor, these appointments can be provided through Barton Court Grammar School.

Unifrog

Unifrog is an online platform for students, teachers and parents. It is predominantly a careers and university preparation website which enables easy logging, monitoring and tracking of students’ employability skills, extracurricular interests, as well as their choices for post 16 and post 18 destinations. It is also used to draft and provide feedback on UCAS statements and write teacher / tutor references. Students can also research apprenticeships, MOOCs and other extra and super curricular opportunities.

There is a comprehensive Scheme of Work for students to follow on Unifrog, and students will be given opportunities to complete various parts of Unifrog during tutor time and Enrichment Day sessions.

Students will use Unifrog to do the following:

Create a CV
Log all careers-based learning against the Gatsby benchmarks
Log all extracurricular activities they complete, and reflect on what they have learned
Be offered supercurricular tasks with information and links – this to be provided by the teachers
Log skills (competencies) and qualities
Log activities (e.g. work experience) and what they learned
Log all personal development sessions done as part of PSHEE, Enrichment Days, and within curriculum areas.

Unifrog will therefore act as an excellent record over many years of all of achievements, accomplishments and skills that students build. A full record of these achievements will be visible from Years 7-11, and eventually in sixth form.

PSHEE and Enrichment Days

The following activities are examples of potential events with a careers focus, all of which have already successful been planned and executed at Barton Court Grammar School. The programme may change depending on the needs of students. These events are in addition to the VESPA careers programme, and are designed to complement and extend the programme.

Year 7

Attendance to the careers fair
Students to register on Unifrog and complete the personality quizzes
Careers Fair – planned to be a joint event with Barton Court Grammar School for at least the first year.
Careers Day – including sessions on the Labour Market information, vision for the future and the yearly NHS competition. This day will occur at the same time as the careers fair.

Year 8

Unifrog session to log qualities, competencies and skills
Preparation for careers appointments
GCSE subject choices and stepladders
The Big Careers Quiz

Year 9

Enterprise / Dragon’s Den-style session
Unifrog session on subjects, moocs and university
Form time unit on financial competency

Year 10

Attendance to the Careers Fair Unifrog session creating a CV
At least two sessions covering preparation for work experience, and the completion of the RIASEC test.
Careers Day run by EBP ('Marketing Me', The Group Interview Experience, Creativity in the Workplace, Employability, Preparation and interview techniques, Study skills)

Year 11

Attendance to the Careers Fair
Unifrog session exploring online opportunities
Post-18 PSHEE session
Post-16 pathway meetings with SLT and pastoral leaders
Completion of Kent Choices in tutor time
Mock interview day (currently planned to occur at BCGS in year 10)

Employee Encounters

Students will have access to encounters with employees through the following routes:

Inspire lecture careers talks at lunchtime / during form time – external professionals will come to Barton Manor and talk to students. These can be conducted with a specific year group or within a specific subject area. Whole-school careers talks will also be made available via Microsoft Teams, and they will be shared across the trust.
Careers fair – an annual event to be hosted at Barton Court Grammar School: a range of employers, businesses and universities are invited to Barton Court, and BMS students will be invited to participate in the event. This usually occurs as part of an enrichment day in March.

Work Experience

In Year 10 students will be given the opportunity to take part in a work experience placement during the final week of the summer term. This will offer an exciting opportunity for students to develop a range of employability skills, and to relate their learning in the classroom to

Barton Manor School will use EBP Kent in order to complete risk assessments of all placements that students wish to attend. The Careers Coordinator, the Head of Year and appropriate administrative staff will coordinate the work experience placements, giving students advice and support to secure their placements. They will also conduct visits to monitor students during this week.

University, College and Apprenticeships

Students will also have the opportunity to explore Further and Higher Education opportunities, including trips to local universities. Local universities will be invited to give talks about the benefits of attending university in order to raise aspirations, particularly if students would be first generation university students. Local colleges will also be invited to joint Careers Fairs with Barton Court in the first few years of the school. In line with the Baker Clause there will also be opportunities for Further Education institutions such as colleges to speak to year groups across different year groups.

Through the ASK programme, students will have access to information, talks and advice about how to secure an apprenticeship. Students will be given advice about the different levels of apprenticeship, alongside workshops to help them prepare applications and interviews.

CPD and Professional Development Opportunities for Staff

As part of new staff CPD, the Careers Coordinator will offer Careers and CEIG training to demonstrate how careers education should be embedded into curriculum areas, and how to support students in making decisions about their careers.
Every year the Careers Coordinator attends at least one curriculum leader meeting to ask leaders to self-audit their department. Clear targets are generated and shared with the careers coordinator who will support this process.

Sharing of Information and Resources

Barton Manor School will have a dedicated careers area on SharePoint for teachers, and another area for students and parents to access resources at home. The teacher page will be organised to provide form time and enrichment day resources, as well as the opportunity to share best practice. The learner area will provide useful guides, up-to-date information and other resources such as the VESPA booklets to enable parents / carers to become fully aware of the careers programme.

The school website will publish the following information:

Names of the designated Careers Lead
The relevant member of Senior Leadership who line manages careers
The gifted and talented coordinator
The careers programme (roadmap and additional information)
Application for Provider Access
Other useful websites
Labour market information
A link to the Learning Gateway
Updates on events within the News stream on the homepage

A termly newsletter will also be sent home offering up-to-date advice and support for parents, carers and students. This will also summarise the careers-related events happening in the school community. Participation by parents, carers and the local community is actively encouraged, and can provide opportunities for talks and employee encounters.

Within the Learning Resource Centre there will be a display unit with up-to-date careers literature, including subject-specific study guides and other books / magazines relating to careers.

Monitoring and Evaluation

Leaders will constantly be seeking to improve and adapt the careers provision according to student needs. This will be evaluated through METAL (monitoring and evaluation of teaching and learning), including a deep dive, with observations of careers sessions, as well as interviews by the senior leadership team with the careers coordinator. The School Development plan will also set out milestones throughout the year to monitor progress against agreed targets. Feedback will be systemically gained in the following ways:

Termly student voice – in their individual year groups and as a whole school student voice, students will be asked about their views of the careers programme.
Parent and carer surveys – two surveys will be sent home via Microsoft Forms to parents and carers to establish their views, and to provide additional information and support
Employers – in addition to the published information on the school website, Barton Manor will work with local employers to develop the careers programme further.