Careers, Aspiration and Employability
Our Future Zone
Our Future Zone provides information about the opportunities available to you when you graduate from Haven High Academy.
In the Future Zone you won’t only find information about careers, you can find information on every step of your career journey, from Year 9 options, college or sixth form pathways, university choices and apprenticeships. You can also find out about employability skills and get help with CVs and applications.
Here at Haven High Academy, we believe that showing you the almost limitless number of options you have for your future will help you find a goal to aim for, and with this goal in mind, achieve your potential in whichever direction you decide to go. We will support you in your choices, but we will challenge your thinking to ensure you have explored all opportunities available, even some you didn’t know existed or thought were ‘for somebody else’. We want you to become more than you ever thought you could be, and to grasp more than you ever thought you could reach. We believe in you. We hope you do too.
Careers Strategy
We recognise the importance of effective Careers Education, Information, Advice and Guidance (CEIAG) for young people and we expect all our students to develop high aspirations and eventually move into a wide range of ambitious careers. We aim to ensure that every student that comes through our doors, regardless of background or individual need, leaves equipped with the resilience, ability and drive to move confidently down a path of their own choosing and become happy and successful citizens of the future.
We are committed to following the Department of Education’s Careers Strategy, the statutory guidance on careers education and to meet all 8 of the Gatsby Benchmarks, as recommended by Sir John Holman. We also achieved Career Mark, a Quality in Career Standard award.
In order to do this, we make our students aware of as many opportunities as we can, throughout the year and across the year groups. We do this through employer visits, guest speakers, work experience, Further Education and Higher Education provider talks, in assemblies, workshops, and in form time. We also employ a dedicated Careers Leader who is responsible for overseeing the school careers programme and communicating this with SLT, Governors, parents/careers and employers and can help provide students with dedicated careers education sessions and independent and impartial advice and guidance regarding their career decisions.
In line with current statutory requirement we fully support and implement the Provider Access legislation, please see link to Policy
Provider Access Policy Statement
Approved: April 2023
Next review: April 2024
Student Destinations
We will measure our success at the end of each year through our students’ destinations. This will be reflected in higher numbers progressing to appropriate level courses, apprenticeships and other positive destinations such as employment with training. We will also measure impact by gathering feedback from students, teachers and parents/carers for specific events, and through the atmosphere, attainment and behaviour around the school which will come from having goals and working to achieve them.
For further information please contact our Careers Leader and Advisor, Tracy Gallagher, on 01205 311979 or via email: tracy.gallagher@havenhigh.net
Current Careers Programme
Year 7 (It’s never too early to think about your future)
- Form time activities
- Assemblies
- Access to Unifrog
- Activities for Enterprise Week, NAW and NCW
- Careers & future
- Transition
- Financial Education
Year 8
- Form time activities
- Assemblies
- Access to Unifrog
- Activities for Enterprise Week, NAW and NCW
Year 9
- Form time activities
- Assemblies
- Access to Unifrog
- Activities for Enterprise Week, NAW and NCW
- Finance & Budgeting
- Labour market Information
- GCSE Choices
- Options evening
- Employment
- 1:1 Careers guidance
Year 10
- Form time activities
- Assemblies
- Access to Unifrog
- Activities for Enterprise Week, NAW and NCW
- Employment Rights
- Understanding pay
- Work Experience
- Next Steps College Taster
- Post-16 talk (impartial)
- Post-16 choices research
- Personal Branding
- CV
- Apprenticeships
Year 11
- 1-1 Personal Careers Guidance Interviews and follow-ups
- Form time activities
- Assemblies
- Access to Unifrog
- Activities for Enterprise Week, NAW and NCW
- Post 16 options assemblies and provider talks
- Apprenticeship talk
- Destinations fair
All Year Groups
- Careers Education and Employability Skills covered during form time and as part of the Social Studies curriculum.
- National Careers Week and National Apprenticeship week activities/talks
- Enterprise Week Challenges
- Future Zone at break, lunch or by appointment
- Unifrog destinations platform
- Assemblies with invited guests from world of work, training providers, education
Useful information and links
Students
We are a Unifrog school, everything you need in one place.
The platform helps students with the whole progression process – from exploring their interests, to recording the great things they’ve done, to finding education and training opportunities, to drafting their applications. log in with your school email address, if you have forgotten password then click on the link to reset. We use unifrog across the whole school, from individual career meetings to careers lessons.
Unifrog – The universal destinations platform.
Careerpilot : Plan your future work & study – All the information and tools you need to explore your future career
Careers advice – job profiles, information and resources | National Careers Service
Employers and Education Providers
Employers
Would you like to work with us?
We are always interested in expanding our links to the world of work, companies and employers, to support of our careers education, enterprise and work-related learning programme.
If you are interested in supporting a specific curriculum subject area, or would be willing to attend a careers-related event or provide a careers lunchtime drop-in clinic to speak to students in a more informal setting, please contact the Careers Leader, details are located at the top of this page.
Here at Haven High we also offer the opportunity for Year 10 students to participate in traditional Work experience, 1 week a year (possible in March), if you are an employer who would like to support a placement, then please get in touch tracy.gallagher@havenhigh.net. Please be aware that for safeguarding purposes employers will be required to have employer liability insurance.
COLLEGES & TRAINING PROVIDERS – work with us to provide students with additional information about your courses, technical qualifications and apprenticeships.
Haven High welcomes visits from training organisations, further and higher education and technical colleges, together with apprenticeship providers.
If you are willing to support our students and are not yet working with our school, please contact the Careers Leader.
All requests are subject to availability of rooms and in consideration of our timetabled curriculum. Please be aware that we have 240+ students in each year group.
Parents
Your role in supporting your child with their career planning, decisions and transitions is important, but can be as much of a confusing time for you as students. Here are some useful links which may help, in addition we have provided more information throughout this page.
Parental Guidance from The Careers Writers Association – Home
Unifrog – The universal destinations platform.
Careermag – Parents – Careermap
A parents’ toolkit for career conversations (talkingfutures.org.uk)
Teachers
All staff, in particular tutors and subject teachers have an important role in helping to raise students’ aspirations and providing information and signposting about possible pathways after school. If you need any further information or support with careers learning, linked to your subject or in a pastoral role please contact me.
Gatsby Benchmarks – The Gatsby Benchmarks were developed by Sir John Holman. They provide a clear framework for organising the careers provision in school.
The benchmarks are enshrined in statutory guidance and schools (Careers) are responsible for ensuring their implementation and progress towards 100%.
The 8 Gatsby Benchmarks are:
- A stable careers programme
- Learning from careers and labour market information
- Addressing the needs of each student
- Linking curriculum learning to careers – This is where teachers can play their part
- Encounters with employers and employees
- Experiences of workplaces
- Encounters with further and higher education
- Personal guidance
Unifrog – The universal destinations platform. Lots of good subject careers information, use Unifrog to help implement careers into your curriculum programmes