Unifrog

What is 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 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.

Basic Principles

• All activities can be recorded and can be explicitly linked to Gatsby Benchmarks.
• The platform will fit in very well with tutor time, cultural capital days and PSHE.
• Everything goes in one place (UCAS, university searches, destination searches, skills/competency uploads, enrichment/extra-curricular activities), reducing teacher workload.
• Easy tracking system for staff to track student interests and choices. Teachers can also provide comment-based feedback on CVs and personal statements.
• Unifrog is not limited to sixth form only – this could work for the whole school as part of the whole-school careers programme.

Advantages

• In the current climate, it will be very useful for students to access careers advice and post-16 university advice equally from home and school at all times.
• Unifrog can be used by any staff member, so can be used by learning mentors, teacher mentors of PP students, Heads of Year and Senior Leadership team to support and guide students with their future choices.
• Students and staff can track progress of completion, with a percentage of completion per student and per form group. This can encourage a sense of competition amongst students which can prove a useful motivational tool.
• All students can log their skills and reflect on their own competencies, while providing staff with a variety of information concerning their tutees or students within their year group. Teachers can access comprehensive information which students have logged on their profiles to inform conversations and advice over many years.
• At Sixth form results from student searches on Unifrog are made relevant to the student because they can enter current or predicted grades, and then achievable options with the specific qualifications are presented.
• There is an increasing demand for advice on apprenticeships amongst students, and Unifrog will enable them to explore apprenticeships and log their searches for future reference.
• Formalising the process of thinking about qualifications or career paths helps to give students a clear aim and feel that they have more concrete plans, or at least a wider variety of clear options. Giving younger students this option will make the advice more impactful, and they can discuss it with parents / carers at home.
• Subject teachers log UCAS references and predicted grades for each student, which can be used by Year 13 form tutors to write the final UCAS references.
• Unifrog will help to personalise form time sessions, as pupils will only need to research courses relevant to them.

Structure of Unifrog

Student Side

Libraries

Career library

• Shows labour market information with clear pathway into each career
• Provides opportunity to search for universities and apprenticeships (more details below)

Subject library

• University subjects – collates information from 15 different websites (see below for more detail

MOOC

• Provides a range of free online courses for students to complete

Personality quizzes

• Students can complete these to help identify suitable careers

Recording

Activities

• Students can record all activities they complete in school or outside of school

Competencies

• Students to complete a skills builder. They need to provide examples as to how they have achieved these skills. Skills logged on Unifrog and then embedded into personal statements/CV’s etc.

Interactions

• Staff can record interactions/sessions they have put on for students. For example, PSHEE sessions can be uploaded and assigned to students who completed it. This can be linked to competencies and Gastby benchmarks the session linked too

Each student will build a profile which records all of the activities they have engaged in. This can be tracked by the HoY and tutors to see what students are engaging in. This can be exported to make for easy viewing and analysis

Searching tools:

• All search areas for University and apprenticeship (including degree) are in one place
• Unifrog combines information from 15 different websites
• Students can complete the search and filter as they wish. Unifrog will generate a prospectus of Universities which meet the requirements of that student. Universities classified as ‘aspirational’, ‘solid’ and ‘safe’. Prospectus can be printed or downloaded
• Students can shortlist Universities and this can be tracked by tutor/HoY
• Tutors and HoY will get regular updates via email about what students have been researching and shortlisting. Makes it very easy as HoY to track destinations of all students
• Big emphasis on tutor support with destinations – students feel this has been lacking
• Students will be sent a weekly gazette with all relevant university material to keep them updated

UCAS

• Online courses on how to write a personal statement etc.
• Students can write their personal statement on Unifrog and this can be tracked by tutor and Head of Years live. Currently, tutors and HoY only see this when students email it in
• Live comments can be added and tracked by all – reduces duplication of staff providing same feedback on personal statement
• Students can link recording section (above) to personal statement so they can see all the activities they have completed and competencies they have built.

Implementation

Sixth Form Students:

1. Platform for all university and destination searches
2. Completion of personal statements for students and references for staff to be collated here
3. Recording of all extra-curricular activities completed by students. Students to record skills and competencies
4. Staff to record all extra-curricular opportunities provided and log attendance
5. HoY to record all PSHEE and cultural capital day sessions and link these to student profiles

Year 11 Students

• Used in a similar way to Sixth Form students – more research based for University with less focus on university application. Helps prepare for Sixth Form subject choices
• Updating of CV after finishing their work experience in the summer of Year 10
• Logging on employability skills and competences from Year 10 work experience
• Early tagging of students (Oxbridge candidates etc.)
• Tracking of extra-curricular interests
• PP / SEN student mentoring

Year 10 Students

• Preparation of CV which can be used in work experience applications
• Logging of student competencies/careers etc.
• Tracking of extra-curricular and competencies
• PP / SEN student mentoring

Year 7-9 Students

• Termly visits to computer rooms for each year group to explore Unifrog and log skills and competencies
• Profile builder: logging of all activities completed
• Teachers logging attendance to extra-curricular activities
• Year 8 specific: careers explorations as students are choosing their GCSE options
• Can link to careers research in PSHEE