Career Guru
Career guidance in schools: what are the challenges and benefits?
Schools must deal with regularly shifting goalposts when it comes to delivering the best careers advice. On top of that, the way in which they are measured is also changing, meaning that staff who already have pressures on their time must adapt. Here, we’ll look at the challenges that schools and their staff face in providing good careers advice to pupils, and how technology can be used to help with those.
Here, we’ll look at the importance of career guidance for students and some of the challenges that schools and their staff face in providing good careers advice to pupils.
5 minutes
Written by Jemma Croll
Why is career guidance important and what’s changed?
Recently, Ofsted updated its inspection handbook to place more importance on the benefits of careers guidance for students. Now, the Department for Education has more ‘teeth’ to enforce its Baker Clause. This is the amendment to the Technical and Further Education Act 2017 that requires secondary schools to give all pupils between Years 8 and 13 access to colleges and training providers, so they can learn more technical training and apprenticeships.
It’s all to address the imbalance in the education system, which for the past few decades has seen a heavy emphasis placed on going to university, but little on non-academic training and vocational careers. In fact, only 4% of young people take an apprenticeship after their GCSEs, leaving many industries with a skills shortage.
The Baker Clause isn’t new but, thanks to Ofsted’s update, it’s now much more crucial for schools to see it is considered. On top of that, schools should make sure that the eight Gatsby benchmarks of good career guidance are followed.
What are the benefits of career guidance in schools?
Offering careers guidance can not only help pupils make more informed decisions, it can inspire them to achieve new goals. With more developed career-planning skills, pupils are inevitably more confident about making their post-16 choices, with a firm understanding of the requirements needed to pursue certain courses.
How are schools currently managing their career guidance?
We ran a survey amongst 75 secondary schools to establish how careers guidance in schools typically works at the moment. These included local authority-maintained secondary schools, secondary academies, free schools and independent schools, to get the best possible cross-section.
Although the majority of them (96 per cent) employ a careers lead, only a third (33 per cent) use an external specialist company to help them deliver the advice. Even fewer (31 per cent) use a product or tool to help pupils either get the information they need or to provide materials and frameworks.
While it would be brilliant if every school could employ a careers advisor, as a lot of time is needed to do the job properly, 64 per cent of survey respondents don’t currently have a career guidance qualification.
What are the challenges?
While the majority of schools understand the impact of career guidance on students, time constraints and teacher workload are two of the main hurdles that they need to overcome. Similarly, with no formal qualifications required, it can be difficult to implement a robust career guidance programme that will both inspire and motivate pupils.
What are the benefits?
Offering careers guidance can not only help pupils make more informed decisions, it can inspire them to achieve new goals. With more developed career-planning skills, pupils are inevitably more confident about making their post-16 choices, with a firm understanding of the requirements needed to pursue certain courses.
How technology can help your secondary school meet it’s career guidance requirements
Using specialist career guidance software such as Access Career Guru can help schools to offer enhanced careers advice, simultaneously relieving the pressure on staff and making the process engaging for pupils. Some of the major benefits include:
Proof for Ofsted
Using the system is good proof to Ofsted, come inspection time, that your school is providing career guidance, and that concerted and considered efforts are being made to meet the Gatsby benchmarks.
Provides structure
It helps to create targeted lesson plans and materials, such as interview techniques and employability skills worksheets for students. Lessons can focus on common areas of difficulty, specific to schools and demographics.
Reduces time spent on marking and reviewing
Your school staff will currently spend a lot of their time on tasks such as marking CVs and mock interviews. The software package can significantly reduce this, allowing them to focus their efforts on pupils’ progress and development, and providing more complex advice.
Keeps track of school’s efforts
The ability of your school to keep track of its progress in working towards the Gatsby benchmarks gives you a yardstick to measure against, giving visibility of when you are excelling and where you can devote more time. This is all proof of meeting your school’s career guidance requirements.
Pupils can use it at their own pace
The interactive nature of Career Guru keeps pupils engaged with the process and the different elements of the software. Meanwhile, the possibility for them to use it at their own pace and take in the information thoroughly when they want to use it, means that they gain as much as possible from using it. This is an important part of catering to young people of different skill sets, whether they are technically or academically-minded.
