Careers

Aims and vision

Our careers education is of high quality and targeted yo meet the needs our young people with special educational needs. It is delivered in a meaningful and appropriate way. We ensure our students are equipped with the knowledge, understanding, skills and attitudes to best prepare them for the next phase of their lives and beyond. 

Our vision is to increase the opportunities our students have in the world of work and beyond. The careers programme at Richard Cloudesley aims to meet the needs of all students, through person centred planning. We aim to meet the needs of all students at this school and differentiate learning opportunities through outcomes, resources and learning styles to ensure that it is appropriate to students’ stages of career learning and development.

Provision

Careers education involves both education and guidance. Careers education helps our pupils develop the knowledge and skills they need to make successful choices, manage transitions in learning and move into college or work. Through guidance, pupils are able to use their knowledge and skills to make decisions about learning and work that are right for them.  

Careers Education is delivered through the PSHE programme for Years 7-9 and the Preparation for Adulthood programme for Years 10 and 11 and 12-14. 

Every year we have a week dedicated to careers education. Visitors join us to talk about different career opportunities. A focus on role models with disabilities, and ex-pupils helps to inspire and allow pupils to feel represented. During our most recent career week, we had visits from a firefighter, theatre workers, a fashion designer, astronomers and customer service workers. Students told us that they felt inspired. “It was cool to see friends from my school now working.” said one pupil. “We can actually have jobs!” was feedback from another.  

Governing Body

The governing body are committed to ensuring that:

• the school provides impartial guidance and advice to enable pupils to understand and their career choices for the future
• careers education is seen as part of the overall curriculum and learning frameworks for all years, throughout the school.
• staff have high aspirations for the pupils and encourage them to be ambitious with their aspirations.
• the school involves pupils, parents, and carers in the further development of careers work.
• the school is proactive in working with outside agencies to provide individualised and motivating opportunities for pupils in gaining access to the world of work.
• employer engagement in our local community is encouraged and facilitated by governors’ connections.

Statutory Requirements

The careers provision at Richard Cloudesley is in line with the statutory guidance outlined by the Department for Education. We take into account the Baker Clause and ensure that opportunities are provided in line with the Gatsby Benchmarks.

Meeting the Gatsby Benchmarks

The internationally recognised Gatsby Benchmarks help to develop a careers programme that increases opportunities for students to access everything from experiences of the workplace and personal guidance with a career’s adviser, to engagement with employers, colleges and training providers.

While the benchmarks themselves are non-statutory they help to provide a framework for a careers programme for all pupils 12yrs and above.

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 learning to careers
5. Encounters with employers and employees
6. Experiences of workplaces
7. Encounters with further and higher education
8. Personal guidance

Richard Cloudesley School has worked with Talentino, a careers provider, to ensure that we are meeting all the benchmarks and are providing a robust Careers Education programme.

Click on the link below to access the SEND Gatsby Benchmark Toolkit. This document from the Career Development Institute was written to illustrate what good looks like across the eight benchmarks, in the context of SEND setting.  

The SEND Gatsby Benchmark Toolkit

Using the Compass Evaluation tool, the Career team at Cloudesley can easily and regularly evaluate the careers offer at Richard Cloudesley and identify our strength and areas for improvement.

Pupil Experience

Yusuf and Jack went to Enable Leisure in Battersea Park. They put together a presentation to to review and evaluate their experience. Here is an extract:

"The skills that we learnt:

• Speaking to strangers
• Being confident on public transport
• Working in the office admin work
• Giving instructions in gym classes
• Learnt about all the gym equipment.
• Getting stuff sorted ourselves like transport medication lunch communicating with Tim.

We found it good it was good for our experience we would like to do it again but somewhere closer it was good for our confidence."

Feedback on pupils’ work experience

Alessandro and Julia spent an afternoon helping out in one of our Early Years classes. They both have an interest in childcare. Here is some of the feedback Julia received from the work experience placement.

"WOW! Julia was great! You could see that she loved it, she was helping out and following instructions. She helped pupils take off shoes and she helped to push chairs to play time and back to class. She was supporting with our communication group and playing with the children. I would love to have her back for a full day. You could see she loved it and wanted to help out. She had some lovely interactions with the pupils in class."

 Application for Provider Access

If you are interested in providing opportunities for our pupils, please contact us on. admin@cloudesley.islington.sch.uk