How we Measure and Assess the Impact of our Careers Programme

At Castle Mead Academy we use the eight Gatsby Benchmarks and the Careers Development Institute Framework as a foundation when planning our Careers programme. We work closely with the Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership (LLEP) Careers Hub; an external organisation that supports us to develop and strengthen our careers education strategy across the whole school.

The effectiveness of our provision is reviewed using the Compass+ evaluation tool. The tool, devised by the Careers and Enterprise Company (CEC), is used by schools and colleges in England to support the analysis and evaluation of careers activity against the eight benchmarks of best practice. It ensures that the development of our careers strategy is ongoing.  We review our programme, against the Gatsby Benchmarks using Compass+, once per term.

In line with the recommendations set out in Gatsby Benchmark 1, we plan to review and evaluate the careers programme every year to assess its efficacy and areas for improvement. We will evaluate our careers provision using a combination of stakeholder feedback alongside reviewing our scholar’s destinations and our NEET figure. We will have our first year 11 cohort leavers destination report available from 2025. We will use all of the evidence collected to inform continuous improvement of the programme.

Stakeholder feedback – We review samples of stakeholder feedback collected using various methods after activities, events and experiences.
Implementation – We review what was actually delivered against the programme of planned activity and how well it went.
Impact – We measure key performance indicators linked directly to our vision and desired outcomes for our scholars.