At Castle Mead we consider quality Careers Guidance to be an essential part of academy life for our scholars. Quality Careers Guidance can act as a motivator in each scholar’s drive for success at Castle Mead.
We intend to appoint an expert Careers Leader in the next couple of years as the academy grows. In the meantime, please do direct any queries with regards our Careers Guidance to Mr Hague, Principal, in the first instance.
Are you an employer or provider who would like to add to one of our events or help us with our careers work? Please click here.
Progress to date against the Gatsby Benchmarks (September 2020)
*This is to be reviewed in Spring 2021.
| Gatsby Benchmark | Summary of progress to date
| Further actions planned |
| A stable careers programme | Enterprise Adviser appointed, Mark Smith, former COO of Mattioli Woods plc. Vision and strategy formed. | Considering ‘Skills Builder’ with one year free trial. This is a comprehensive package which acts as a solution to embedding a careers culture in school. |
| Learning from career and labour market information | Local career and labour market information displayed on the CMA website. | To use this information to shape careers programme. |
| Addressing the needs of each pupil | Disadvantaged pupils have been interviewed by the Y7 Pupil Premium co-ordinator. | Take pupil voice and other such feedback on careers knowledge and ambitions of pupils, to inform careers programme. |
| Linking curriculum learning to careers | Considered as part of line management schedule for Curriculum Leaders. Subject specific careers displays in classrooms. | To consider meaningful opportunities for careers to be linked to curriculum areas, whilst the curriculum is continuing to be mapped at this stage. |
| Encounters with employers and employees | Need to establish an employer engagement strategy. | |
| Experiences of workplaces | To follow towards the end of KS3 and into Y10 with work experience placements. | |
| Encounters with further and higher education | Local universities used for Transition day and also as support for delivery of Castle Character Time electives. | Continue to establish relationships with universities, engaging again with Widening Participation leads. Building this systematically into the ‘CMA journey’. |
| Personal guidance | Need to choose a careers guidance platform (e.g. Start, Kudos, Fast Tomato etc.) |
Labour Market Information
The next review of the Careers information published here will be in February 2021.
Growing A Community Of Excellence