Careers Information, Advice and Guidance

Motivation, Careers and Community Lead: Michael Rafferty m.rafferty@warriner.oxon.sch.uk

Careers Administration Support: Anna Morton a.morton@warriner.oxon.sch.uk   

Both Mr Rafferty and Ms Morton can also be contacted by telephone through the main Reception on 01295 720777.

 

 

 

 

The Warriner School has a proactive strategy for the Careers Information, Advice and Guidance (CIAG) that we provide to young people. This is done in conjunction with OxLEP and using the latest information from the Careers and Enterprise Company. The strategy is embedded within a clear framework outlined below.  It reflects the school’s ethos and meets the needs of all students by focussing on the Eight Gatsby Benchmarks of Good Career Guidance:

1. A stable Careers programme 
2. Learning from career and labour market information
3. Addressing the needs of each pupil
4. Linking curriculum to careers
5. Encounters with employers and employees
6. Experiences of workplaces
7. Encounters with further and higher education
8. Personal guidance

We provide access to a range of activities that inspire young people, designed to open doors, challenge preconceptions and provide aspiration experiences for our students. We are always looking to expand on what we do and appreciate support in any of our programmes.

Culinera Careers Breakfast: Graciously sponsored by our school caterer Culinera this takes the form of an informal breakfast chat between someone in a given career or degree and a dozen or so students from across all years. We schedule one session a fortnight, lasting about 20 minutes, with half of it being a presentation and half a Q&A session, all with pastries. These happen throughout the year.

Annual Careers Fair: This takes place every March (this year on the 22nd from 4:30-6:30).  We have an evening of stands from different Colleges, Universities, Companies and Professions for students mostly from Years 9 to 13 to peruse and ask questions about. We are looking for anyone who can promote a career or pathway and is passionate about what they do to join us. Whether you bring a full-on display or just a table, chair and chat we are eager to include you. This is also an opportunity for training providers to showcase to our students how they can help students with their next steps. This year we are hoping to expand and put a spotlight on outdoor and animal based careers. This is also CPD for teaching staff who will be looking for ways to expand the knowledge base of their curriculums to build in more real life examples.

Apprenticeship Fair: A first for us; in collaboration with several other secondary schools in the area, OxLEP and Lock 29,  we had the first Banbury Apprenticeship Fair on the 13th of October. It was considered a success and we are looking to repeat this next year. With advice on how to pursue an apprenticeship given alongside many providers in post-16 and post-18 apprenticeships on-hand actively looking for recruits.

If you are able to advise on apprenticeships or are on the lookout we hope you will make contact.

Careers Experience Week: (July 10th-14th) In an effort to expand students’ horizons and offer something more to break down barriers and open opportunities we are continuing with our Careers Experience Week again this year. Instead of students going off to a place of work and experiencing a single profession we invite and organise over 50 careers onsite for students to sample over a week. Last year we had everything from Coffee Barista to Animal Training, Medical procedures to Flight Planning, with providers from Universities, Colleges, Businesses and individuals. On top of the Careers experience we run workshops in interview skills, financial planning and CV writing. If you feel you could run a session for different groups to try over a day or maybe just an hour (and the more interactive the better) then we are interested in hearing from you!

Educational Trips: We always seek to inspire our students with trips to places of further and higher education with a focus of trips and visits for students picking GCSE options and those embarking on their GCSEs whilst offering more bespoke trips for our sixth form students planning their next steps.

Careers Curriculum Edge: Already built into our science programme, and expanding, we work with employers and industry to put a real life edge to our curriculum with in-school demonstrations and seminars for groups of students as part of their lessons. This has expanded this year to include talks and presentations to Sixth formers who are looking for more information about prospective careers paths.

Warriner Footpaths: Working with our alumni, we now have over 70 videos from former students all focused on what their job entails, what motivates them about it and how they got where they are today. This is done while keeping in mind they all began just where our current students are. These videos are used fortnightly in tutor time to inform students of different pathways they could follow from people who started exactly where they are now.

As well as the key components above, careers mentoring is an important part of our programme, meeting the duty of the school to deliver impartial careers advice.  Careers education is interwoven into the curriculum and provided across the year groups during Tutorial time activities. This is tailored to the year group, and provided to meet specific needs throughout the school year.  In addition to this, enrichment activities support careers awareness.

Support for all years delivered as modules within the Tutorial and Curriculum framework

From the start of life at The Warriner, pupils are coached into being aware of the reason that they are at school. The greater this awareness, the clearer the goals of the students and the more motivation is evident. This self-motivation is invaluable in terms of success for young people. We actively encourage the ‘I want to be a…’ philosophy from an early age.

Year 7 focus: Personal attributes - Working with a PSHE focus developing self-awareness with a view to future career choices.

Year 8 focus: The importance of education in allowing choice – ensuring pupils understand the benefits of the combination of experience, qualifications and references.

Year 9 focus: Qualifications and gaining experience – Building on the work done for guided options students are given a talk about post 16 options focusing on pathways other than A-Levels spotlighting apprenticeships, T-levels and vocational courses. They are also given pastoral tasks aimed and getting them thinking about their future and a visit to university to expand their horizons.

Year 10 focus: Skills for employment - As well as building upon the previous years we have our bespoke careers experience week here designed to challenge students and give them a taste for different skills and careers whist also working on skills such as interview skills and CV writing. We are also introducing a joint session for parents and students to inform and educate about different post 16 paths ways.

Year 11 focus: Preparation for post 16 opportunities – Reporting is tied into target setting here with students looking at post 16 pathways in relation to their working-at grades and assessing and building a plan A and plan B to meet their personal goals to access their next steps.

Years 12 and 13 focus: Working with the future in mind - Sixth Form students are provided with comprehensive advice and guidance from the outset on Post-18 options including the UCAS progress, apprenticeship routes and alternative options.  We utilise a number of guest speakers throughout the year to ensure students are given a broad range of options to consider as well as visiting a number of universities for open days and careers events. 

All Year 12 students are required to undertake community service and at least one MOOC over the course of the year to ensure that all applications and CVs are of the highest calibre.  A further week of work experience is also mandatory which should support post 18 applications, To facilitate this we allow the students and employers to decide on a time that suits them best rather than constrain then to one week for all.

Please contact Mr Rafferty if you would like further information about our careers programme.

Impartial Career Guidance
The Warriner School has an in-house qualified career adviser to support students.  All students in Year 11 have an appointment designed to equip them with the skills to determine their own future. Individual appointments can be arranged where additional support is required. 

Career guidance is provided by Anna Morton                                                                          Level 6 Diploma in Career Guidance, CDI Academy: a.morton@warriner.oxon.sch.uk

In addition to 1:1 careers appointments in school, the National Careers Service offers appointments with careers advisers.   The National Careers Service webchat service can be found here: https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/contact-us Customers can call 0800 100 900 or contact us via email or webchat to speak to a qualified careers adviser.  Phone lines and webchat are now available Monday to Friday from 8am to 8pm and every Saturday from 10am to 5pm. Careers education is further supported through mock interviews carried out in association with local business people who provide interviewers with a wealth of human resource experience to further our students' understanding of the requirements of the real world.  This valuable contribution to our careers service in an integral part of the holistic approach to the education of our students.  If you would like to take part in this process which happens in July for new Year 11 students, please contact a.morton@warriner.oxon.sch.uk. Measuring our provision and its impact We assess the success of our Careers programme using the Compass+ system and measuring ourselves against the Gatsby Benchmarks. This is carried out at least three times a year with an external assessor to check the evidence. We use both face-to-face discussions and Microsoft Forms to gain valuable student voice input, as well as feedback from teaching and support staff on the effectiveness of the programme. We also make use of destination data for school-leavers to inform and review our provision. After every event we also seek feedback from those who have provided their time for how we can improve. Destination data for our Year 11 and Year 13 school-leavers is published annually on our main Results page.

We are still providing a more traditional work experience programme for our Year 12s, putting a focus on workplace experience over careers skills, and value the importance this can hold.