West Gate School

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Careers Programme at West Gate School

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At West Gate School, we are passionate about supporting students to prepare for their adult lives. This can mean supporting pupils to make progress in many different ways which will help them to be successful in their future. For some this may mean developing independence skills that will allow them to access the wider community with support, for some their goal may be to live independently but with support and for some of our young people their ultimate aim should be to secure employment in a job that brings them satisfaction and financial reward. 

For our pupils following the Preparations curriculum pathway we offer our careers programme, which provides opportunities of work experience and internships, careers advice and guidance, encounters with employers and employees from different sectors of work and also links curriculum learning to employability skills and knowledge.   

We provide impartial guidance and advice on further education, training or employment across KS3, KS4 and 16+ and involve many outside agencies such as employers and education providers. 

Our Careers Leader is Mr Tim Bosworth.  If you have any queries about careers, higher education or work experience please contact him on  01162552187 or TBosworth@westgate.leicester.sch.uk                                                             Our Careers Link Governor is Ms E. Shaw. 

Employment Providers Access Policy and Careers Programme Overview

 

Meet our alumni

Are you a former student from our school?  We’d love to hear your story and perhaps feature you on our website or invite you to call back to our school and talk about your career pathway.  Please do get in touch!

 

Or if you are an employer or business volunteer and would like to get involved with our School and support our students please reach out to our Careers Leader.

 

Leicestershire’s Labour Market

 

We think Leicester and Leicestershire is an amazing place to live and work.   As one of the most vibrant areas in the East Midlands there is a lot to shout about.  

Quick fact… did you know in Leicester and Leicestershire over 99% of local businesses are micro (0-9 staff), small (10-49 staff) or medium enterprises (who employ 50 to 249 staff).  If that sounds interesting, you could visit the World of Work website which has much more information on the local labour market with easy-to-read facts and figures.

 

How we Assess Impact

 

How we measure and assess the impact of the careers programme

West Gate School works closely with the Leicester and Leicestershire Enterprise Partnership (LLEP) Careers Hub.  This is an external organisation that supports us to develop and strengthen our careers education strategy across the whole school.  West Gate is a member of the LLEP Careers Hub.  

At West Gate we use the 8 Gatsby Benchmarks as a foundation when planning our careers programme.  The effectiveness of our provision is reviewed by the LLEP and the Careers and Enterprise Company using the Compass Plus online evaluation tool.  This tool 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 will benchmark our school against the Gatsby Benchmarks once per term.

In line with the recommendations set out in Gatsby Benchmark 1, we plan to review the published information on an annual basis, inviting feedback from key audiences in our stakeholder evaluation group.  

Why we evaluate – This careers programme is evaluated every year to assess its efficacy and areas for improvement.  In the coming years Key stakeholders (students, parents, teachers and employers) will provide feedback on their participation in activities via questionnaires, surveys and focus groups. We use the evidence collected to inform continuous improvement of the programme.

How we evaluate – West Gate school are currently forming an evaluation stakeholder group, whose purpose it is to provide a well-balanced view on the quality of the careers offer to students.  The group is chaired by the school’s Enterprise Adviser, Jade Lester of Cadent Gas (senior business volunteer).  The stakeholder group aim to meet once per year to review the evidence collected during the school year and consider their subjective experience and engagement with the programme.  The Careers Leader creates an evidence pack for members of the group in advance of the annual evaluation meeting.

The school Careers Leader combines their own knowledge, evidence and information with that from the stakeholder group and provides feedback with recommendations to SLT, towards the end of the summer term.

 

We Discover Project

In 2021-2023 our school has been involved in the LLEP research project We Discover. The project aims to support schools and businesses to come together to create a programme of activity, interventions, and support to build the evidence base for quality assured pathways for young people with SEND into appropriate post-16 education, training, or employment.

 

As part of the project, we have helped to develop some further support for our students, teachers, employers, and parents and carers. Here are a couple of resources to explore:

Careers Conversation Starters We Discover Journal

 

  • To support conversations at home and in the classroom, take a look at these Career Conversation Starters together.

 

  • We will be testing these We Discover Journals with some of our students. Take a look at all the different ways we will be supporting students to increase their knowledge about what comes next; to learn about, and practise, their skills, and to develop and understand the behaviours they’ll need for their future workplace or community setting.

 

 

  Post 16 pupils will need to fill out this form giving their consent for us to send data to potential employers or training organisationsPost 16 Reference Consent Form

 

To check how you are getting on, we need your agreement to share information that identifies you and what you have gone on to do.  We already do this as a requirement of the Education and Skills Act 2008, until you are aged 16.  We need to check you are happy for us to continuePost 16 & 18 Destinations Data Consent Form