Our careers programme

Students at East Leake Academy have a planned programme of careers education, information, advice and guidance (CEIAG), in accordance with the DFE careers guidance and inspiration in schools guidelines. The programme ensures all students have opportunities to recognise their own strengths and values and take responsibility for developing employability skills.

Parental support

Talking to your child about their career aspirations, understanding plans is an important step in helping them to establish a pathway which suits them. Sitting down for a simple question and answer session with your child can be a great way to do this, and revisiting their answers occasionally can help them to continue to shape their plans to suit their needs.

Careers conversations – student and parent Q&A prompts

Key contact

Our careers lead is Mr P Renshaw:
prenshaw@eastleake-ac.ork.uk
01509 852424

Policies

All related policies, including our careers education, information, advice and guidance policy and our provider access policy can be found here.

Entitlement

We aim to provide each student with a range of opportunities, as the following section illustrates. We are also always looking to develop and offer new opportunities in each academic year.

  • Access to Unifrog
    Unifrog is an online platform that brings all the available careers information and age relevant activities into a single place. It is designed to help students to make the best possible choices and to produce their strongest possible application.
  • Access to onsite, ongoing and impartial careers advice and information
  • Careers information is regularly provided through curricular activities, including subject lessons, personal development time and year based drop down sessions
  • Careers Information for parents is also shared on Weduc

Careers education is provided through Unifrog activities, Microsoft Teams, assemblies and through curriculum lessons

  • Careers education is provided through Unifrog activities, Microsoft Teams, assemblies and through curriculum lessons. These are linked to the key stage 4 pathways process, with a focus on decision making and the impact of pathway choices on future options
  • There is a key stage 4 pathways process to help students make guided and informed choices about their future. This includes a pathways evening and assemblies
  • Careers education is provided through Unifrog activities, Microsoft Teams, assemblies and through curriculum lessons. Topics include creating a CV and interview training
  • There is an opportunity for all students to engage in a mock interview day with volunteer interviewers from local and national businesses
  • Careers education is provided through Unifrog activities, assemblies and through curriculum lessons. Year 11s have the opportunity to explore all post 16 options – sixth form, college, apprenticeships and also future pathways
  • Our independent careers advisor and also our careers lead, Mr Renshaw, meet with individual year 11 students on a weekly basis to provide ongoing support
  • Year 11 students have access to a dedicated section on Microsoft Teams which provides regularly updated careers and pathways information and advice (where relevant, such updates are also added to the Teams pages of other year groups).
  • Access to a weekly information, advice and guidance bulletin with a focus on up to date careers information
  • Visits to universities and higher education fairs
  • Alumni presentations
  • The opportunity to take part in a week’s work experience supported by a range of local and national employers. During any period of restrictions this is organised as a virtual work experience
  • Regular personal development sessions containing careers, employability and life skills content, including for example, higher education applications, apprenticeships, financial awareness

View the Post 16 page for extra careers resources.

Unifrog

All of our students have free access to Unifrog, an online service which enables students to easily explore their interests, then find and successfully apply for their next best step after school; such as university, further education, or going straight into a career.

It offers students the opportunity to create a bespoke pathway for themselves and gives real-time advice on available courses, careers, salaries and more.

It is the only place where students can compare every university course, apprenticeship and FE course in the UK as well as university courses in 30 other countries across the world. This is alongside getting access to labour market information and advice on careers and subjects for all routes.

Helping students to record and evidence their key activities and competencies and prepare their CVs and personal statements alongside teacher reference, CEIAG interactions recording and destination tracking tools – all in line with the Gatsby Benchmarks.

If you would like your own login for Unifrog, to explore the platform for yourself, please get in touch with our careers lead.

The Gatsby Benchmarks

The Gatsby Benchmarks consist of eight guidelines that identify excellent careers guidance and which the government expects schools to work towards meeting. By doing so, schools can look to measure and improve their careers guidance. The benchmarks provide a very helpful framework for developing our careers programme at East Leake Academy.

In summary, the benchmarks are as follows:

  1. a stable careers programme
  2. learning from career and labour market information
  3. addressing the needs of each student
  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

We aim to evaluate the effectiveness of our careers programme on a regular basis. One of the key methods that we use is the Compass programme developed by the Careers and Enterprise Company. The evaluation requires us to reflect on our practice using the Gatsby benchmarks.

Useful resources

Icould.com – Free and simple to use, icould.com features over 1000 videos of people talking about their careers – explaining their job role, career path, and how different factors have shaped their direction.

National Careers Service – Information, advice and guidance to help you make decisions on learning, training and work.

Careerpilot – Expert careers information and tools for 11-19 year olds, all in one place.

National Apprenticeship Service – Governement service to search for apprenticeships.

Informed Choices – A service to help you understand which subjects open up different degrees, particularly at Russell Group universities.

The Scholarship Hub – Search and apply for University scholarships, bursaries and grants.