Hayesfield Girls’ School and Mixed Sixth Form strives to enable students to develop their knowledge, skills and creativity, preparing them for the 21st century workplace. A central focus is to provide real world context within the world of work and provide students with challenging leadership opportunities that will prepare them for life. Careers is embedded throughout the curriculum and forms part of the comprehensive Character Education programme of activities on offer through the Achieving Ambitions programme.
Students progress from Hayesfield Girls’ School and Mixed Sixth Form to a range of destinations. We seek to ensure that students have high aspirations, and that guidance they receive is impartial and tailored to their individual needs. We seek to inform parents of labour market information and to provide them with knowledge of the choices available to their children.
We respect the right of students to choose from a range of pathways. Our Year 11s may choose to continue their education at our school, or move to another school or Further Education college, specialist provision, or into an apprenticeship. Our Year 13s may choose to move onto University, into apprenticeships, further education, gap years, voluntary work, internships, or straight into paid employment.
We recognise the importance of students developing strong interpersonal and communication skills; as these are vital skills for entering the workforce in the twenty-first century. In addition, we also aim to develop our students’ cultural capital, so that all our students can maximise their social mobility irrespective of their background.
The Department for Education’s Careers Strategy was published in December 2017. It set out a series of measures to improve careers guidance in England, including new benchmarks for careers education and instigating the requirement to have a named Careers Leader in every school.
Hayesfield Girls’ School and Mixed Sixth Form have two Career Leaders, one focusing on Years 7-11 and the other having a Sixth Form focus. Our Career Leaders are committed to providing a reviewed and evaluated programme of careers education from Years 7 to 13, which meets the eight Gatsby Benchmarks for careers guidance:
The Eight Gatsby Benchmarks are:
- A stable careers programme
- Learning from career and labour market information
- Addressing the needs of each pupil
- Linking curriculum learning to careers
- Encounters with employers and employees
- Experiences of workplaces
- Encounters with further and higher education
- Personal guidance (Gatsby Foundation, 2014)
We adhere to the Department for Education guidance, ‘Careers guidance and access for education and training providers’ (DfE, October 2018), which stipulates that all schools must allow other educational providers access and that we must publish a provider access policy.
Careers and Employability Required Access Provision – Student Entitlement
This sets out Hayesfield Girls’ School and Mixed Sixth Form’s arrangements for managing the access of providers to pupils at Hayesfield Girls’ School and Mixed Sixth Form for the purposes of giving them information about the provider’s education or training offer. This complies with the Hayesfield Girls’ School and Mixed Sixth Form’s legal obligations under Section 42B of the Education Act 1997.
Hayesfield Girls’ School and Mixed Sixth Form will ensure appropriate access is given to all providers of Apprenticeships and Technical education. A number of events, integrated into Hayesfield Girls’ School and Mixed Sixth Form’s careers programme, will offer providers an opportunity to come into school to speak to pupils and/or their parents.
The Careers Leader(s) oversees all aspects of the Access policy in action and the planning / delivery of the Hayesfield Girls’ School and Mixed Sixth Form Careers programme. However, all members of Hayesfield Girls’ School and Mixed Sixth Form are committed to highlighting further education opportunities to all of our pupils. Heads of Faculty, the Pastoral team and Subject Leads are responsible for identifying opportunities that will influence the academic studies and personal development of all students.
Opportunities for Access
A number of events, integrated into Hayesfield Girls’ School and Mixed Sixth Form’s careers programme, will offer providers an opportunity to come into school to speak to pupils and/or their parents: This is an example of what will be provided with information from staff organising speakers. Hayesfield Girls’ School and Mixed Sixth Form’s policy on safeguarding sets out our approach to allowing providers into school as visitors to talk to our students.
All pupils in Year 8-13 are entitled to:
- Planned careers provision which provides information about the full range of education and training options, including technical and apprenticeship routes, at each transition point
- Information from a wide range of education and training providers about the opportunities they offer– through options events, assemblies and aspirations events
Management of Provider Access Requests
Access Procedure
To understand how to make applications for the full range of academic and technical courses provider wishing to request access should contact the Careers Leader, Telephone: 01225 426151 Email:careers@hayesfield.com
Opportunities for Access
We actively seek to build partnerships with outside agencies, as a means to broaden our pupils’ horizons and to provide them with exposure to a range of education and career pathways.
We would encourage providers to contact our Careers Leader to find a suitable event to access pupils. All events will need a minimum lead time of six weeks.
We run a wide range of careers and options events throughout the year, and we have the capacity to offer ad-hoc events. We would particularly welcome providers’ attendance at year assemblies, where a whole year group is assembled in a hall environment and you can tailor your presentation to specific age-groups. Presentations must be submitted to the Careers Leader 48 hours before the planned event.
- The school can offer a variety of hall and classroom spaces for use by providers audio -visual equipment is available
- Providers are welcome to leave copies of their prospectus, or other relevant literature, for distribution
- Presentations can be uploaded to our Careers intranet, following events
- Please note that the School reserves the right to withhold access if not deemed in the best interests of our students
Virtual WEX Guide 2021 [PDF]
CEC List of Virtual Opportunities [PDF]
