In the Sixth Form, Careers Education is added to the Year 12 curriculum as a discreet subject and includes talks by visiting speakers, extensive support for the UCAS application programme, including Oxbridge and Early Entry applications and information on vocational pathways as well. This builds upon the Careers Education sessions in the lower school and helps students formulate career ideas, hone vital facilitating skills and allows them to resonate these skills with their learning in their A-Level subjects. Additionally, work experience continues into the Sixth Form and all students are given the opportunity to explore work-based learning, usually running on Wednesday afternoons or Friday mornings. The nature of these placements is career-related and forms an important part of the enrichment curriculum.

In addition to academic success, all students Years 7-13 develop their employability skills by completing employer-recognised skills on the Unifrog platform. Here students complete and evidence skills across a range of competencies intended to develop and accredit the life skills and attributes that employers are telling us that students need and recognise what they can do as well as what they know.

We use Gatsby benchmarks to constantly assess the effectiveness of our provision, and we closely monitor the impact of this by keeping up-to-date records of work experience and careers-related experiences of our students, this includes information sessions in Year 8 and Year 9 where information about Higher Education destinations is covered. This information is essential in helping us constantly refine our Careers Education programme and allows us to take a bespoke approach with individual students to help them with career advice.

Our Careers programme also allows for access to our students by technical and vocational providers so that they are fully informed of approved technical education qualifications and apprenticeships. This includes talks from City College, Plymouth and other external providers on apprenticeships in the Sixth Form, a visit to the Skills South West event in Year 10, a Year 11 options day when vocational pathways are explored with members of staff. In addition, students in the Sixth Form as part of their UCAS preparation are also made aware of the vocational and technical options on offer. This is covered discreetly in the Year 12 UCAS day in June.

By the end of their seven-year journey, our students are ready to take their place in the world as self-aware, considerate, adaptable learners with an appetite for learning and a curiosity that serves them well into their working lives, and importantly for many inspires them to come back and teach the next generation of students.

Careers Education provision is assessed every September from Years 7-13 at the start of every academic year. If parents wish to access any aspects of our Careers Education programme, then they can contact our Careers Lead listed at the bottom of this page.

As a school we are also using Unifrog and Compass + plus to map across our entire student body in terms of their career aspirations and ideas, and allows us to specifically target relevant advice and guidance for each student, ensuring they have a highly tailored, laser-sharp approach in their seven years with us.

We also regularly evaluate our careers programme with a system of feedback from parents, employers and students. This helps inform our review of the careers programme. Additionally, we have a Careers and Transition Team who meets regularly throughout the year whose main task is to evaluate the careers programme and to analyse what targeted supported students need with their careers curriculum as they move through their transitions from lower years, to GCSE and to A-Level.

As a parent, we feel that you have a hugely important role in shaping your child’s future career, and helping them make all important choices. At Devonport High School for Girls, our Careers programme helps our students on their careers journey, and gives them the skills and resilience they need for the next phase. We have extensive resources using the Unifrog platform and visiting speakers, as well as developing skills and competencies relevant for today’s workforce. However it is also true that students will look to their parents first when asking for Careers advice and it is here that we really want to work with our parents as a vital resource he helping prepare our students.

Careers conversations are often most effective when the focus is on skills rather than specific jobs or roles. Additionally, the focus needs to be on what your child finds enjoyable and fulfilling. Likewise, people frequently change their mind about career aspirations, so often conversations will need revisiting, and revisiting again!

An approach that we use, that can be tried at home can be broken down into some following steps:

1. Get students to write down their skills and interests
2. What subjects do they like or are not so keen on
3. These like/dislikes and skills can be linked to Unifrog personality and interest quizzes as used as part of our Careers programme. (https://www.unifrog.org/)
4. On Unifrog there is also a Careers Library where future jobs can be matched to skills, subjects and personalities
5. Often the best careers resource is yourselves as parents, the stories you can tell, the experiences you have had.

Careers is an essential part of our curriculum at Devonport High School for Girls and we are constantly reviewing what we offer so that it can be of benefit to students throughout their journey from Year 7 to 13.

For further information, please look at some links at the bottom of the Careers page

Assistant Head Teacher: Mr E Lamb
Head of Sixth Form
Careers Education Lead

Assistant Head Teacher: Mr E Lamb
Head of Sixth Form
Careers Lead
Devonport High School for Girls
01752 705024
Or email FAO Mr E Lamb via our Contact Us form