Bobmore Lane, Marlow, Buckinghamshire SL7 1JE
Telephone - 01628 483 752
Company Registration No.07690054

Careers at GMS

INTRODUCTION

Great Marlow School believes that all students should have access to careers education, information, advice and guidance. GMS have put in place access to information that helps students choose suitable pathways to careers options. Jobs that offer personal, economic and successful sustainable employment will lead to fulfilled lives.

Staff, together with career advisors, work to raise student aspirations and help strengthen their potential and resilience by delivering career focus events, like work experience, and Careers’ Week, which culminates in a Careers’ Day that has representatives from many professionals making a pitch about their speciality.

Everything GMS does in the careers’ field supports learning, informs career options and embeds personal qualities. GMS are proud that 100% of our students progress onto further and higher education, training, employment or apprenticeships.

The information about the careers advice at GMS is updated annually at the start of the academic year.

GMS Careers Advisor

Mrs Southon is the school’s Career Guidance and Information Adviser: she is available to meet with students one day a week, in her office located in the Sixth Form Centre.

Mrs Southon has a background working in business and charities within human resources, where she successfully ran Apprenticeship and Management Training Schemes for young people and delivered career management skills workshops for professional and support staff.

In 2010, she completed her Postgraduate Diploma in Careers Guidance at Reading University (Dip CG, QCG) with Distinction. As the holder of a Level 7 Appropriate Careers Qualification, she exceeds the Gatsby Benchmark requirements for a professionally qualified Careers Practitioner within our school. She is also licensed to administer and give feedback on a range of Psychometric Tests, including MBTI Personality Questionnaire.

Students have access to a one to one guidance interview with Mrs Southon at key points in their school lifetime, for example when making significant subject choice or career choices including:

  • Year 9 GCSE Options’ Choices
  • Post-16 Career pathways
  • Post-18 Career pathways

Careers information and advice will also be available to parents, carers and students at GCSE Options’ Evening, Parents’ Evenings, the Annual Careers’ Fair and Sixth Form Events.

Mrs G Southon 
GMS – Careers Guidance Information Advisor
Tel: 01628 483752
Email: careers@gms.bucks.sch.uk 		 Mr O Hollyman
GMS – Head of 6th Form and Careers Coordinator
Tel: 01628 483752
Email: info@gms.bucks.sch.uk

Students, parents or carers who need additional guidance please contact Mrs Southon, Career Guidance and Information Adviser for assistance: gsouthon@gms.bucks.sch.uk

Mrs Southon is a full member of the Career Development Institute (MCDI), which is the single UK-wide professional body for everyone working in the field of careers guidance, advice, education and coaching.

CEIAG Programme

Click to enlarge

CEIAG at GMS

There has never been a time when Careers Education, Information and Guidance (CEIAG) has been as important as it is today. The landscape of education, training and employment opportunities that students need to navigate is more complex and more challenging than that faced by previous generations.

Our mission statement is for all students to achieve their personal best. In careers education, this translates to every student making the best choice to progress. GMS aims to support students in making well-informed decisions by providing access to differentiated, impartial and independent information and guidance about the range of options (including academic, vocational, and apprenticeships) that are most likely to help them to achieve their ambitions.  By helping students with decisions at crucial stages, informing them of all their options, and introducing them to the world of work, GMS aims to prepare them for their career future, whichever pathway they choose.

Aims of Careers Education, Information, Advice and Guidance (CEIAG) at Great Marlow School

  • to raise students’ aspirations and to broaden their horizons
  • to inspire and to empower students to make informed realistic decisions at key transition points in their learning
  • to provide good quality independent and impartial careers advice to students which inspires them and motivates them to fulfil their potential
  • to provide advice and guidance in the best interest of the student
  • to provide opportunities to engage and work in partnership with employers, training providers, local colleges and other agencies
  • to provide opportunities to inspire students through encounters with employees
  • to develop enterprise and employability skills including skills for self-employment
  • to support inclusion, challenge stereotyping and promote equality of opportunity

The GMS Careers Map under the heading CEIAG Programme sets out how the GMS Academy provides a careers programme through Key Stage 3 to Key Stage 5 to provide students with the knowledge and inspiration to succeed in their chosen career paths.

We aim to fulfil the Gatsby Benchmarks, the framework of eight guide lines that define careers provision in school and colleges. They are as follows:

  1. A stable careers’ programme
  2. Learning from career and labour market information
  3. Addressing the needs of each student
  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

Provider Access Policy

Recommended by the GMS CIAG Advisor: July 2020
Approved by the Leadership Team: July 2020
Review Due: Summer Term 2021

Policy Purpose

This policy statement sets out the school’s arrangements for managing the access of providers to students at the school for the purpose of giving them information about the provider’s education or training offer. This complies with the school’s legal obligations under Section 42B of the Education Act 1997.

Student  Entitlement

All students in Years 7-13 are entitled:

  • To find out about technical education qualifications and apprenticeships opportunities, as part of a careers programme which provides information on the full range of education and training options available at each transition point;
  • To hear from a range of local providers about the opportunities they offer, including technical education and apprenticeships – through options events, assemblies and group discussions and taster events;

To understand how to make applications for the full range of academic and technical courses.

Management of provider access requests procedure

A provider wishing to request access should contact Owen Hollyman, Careers Leader.

Telephone: 01628 483752; Email: ohollyman@gms.bucks.sch.uk.

Opportunities for access

A number of events, integrated into the school careers programme, will offer providers an opportunity to come into school to speak to students and/or their parents/carers. Current examples include:

  • Annual Careers Fair (Spring Term)
  • Careers Week (Spring Term)
  • GCSE Options Evening (Spring Term)
  • ‘Next Steps’ Programme for Year 12s and Parents Evening (Summer Term)
  • Assemblies for individual year groups ( held weekly throughout the academic year)

GMS Careers’ Week

Unless there are extenuating circumstances, GMS holds their careers’ week in February, when a variety of different businesses, educational establishments and vocations are invited to attend the Careers Fair. The exhibitors range from the armed forces to apprenticeships, ICT to higher education and accountancy to childcare.

The Careers’ Fair is the culmination of a week in which all students, in each year group, have discussions with their subject teachers about how their studies linked to specific careers paths. In addition, each student is given a preparation sheet, allowing them the chance to prepare specific questions for exhibitors.

All students from Year 9 through to Year 13 are given the opportunity to visit the thirty stands housed in the hall and the sixth form centre, to ask questions and discuss their potential career paths with the experts. Also, to collect information and take the free gifts made available!

The day is always a great success and, for many students, provides a first opportunity to really consider their future.

GMS would like to thank the following companies and their representatives, for their support and advice during these successful events:

Click image to see List of Exhibitors

 

GMS Careers Resources

Click to view Careers Choice Booklet

Useful websites include: 

Year 12 Work Experience

In Great Marlow School Year 12s complete a one week work experience placement. In order to minimise disruption to studies, this takes place at the beginning of July: the exact date is advertised at the beginning of the academic year. (In 2020, because of Covid-19, this was cancelled.)

GMS believes in the value of work experience because, firstly, it offers a unique opportunity to experience a workplace environment that could impact on a career choice. Secondly, students can reference the work placement when applying for UCAS, apprenticeships and jobs. Thirdly, some placements may, and frequently do, lead to part-time employment.

To give students ownership of their placement, they are asked to arrange the place of work themselves. They are expected to pay travel costs, which must be factored into their decision. Often a CV and an interview are required; this is good practice and the school encourages employers to do this. To support students through the process there is a section in The Next Steps Guide available on the website, under the Sixth Form tab. Finally, formal paperwork has to be submitted to the employer at the time of the placement.

Students are encouraged to speak to parents, carers, family friends, peers (like Year 13 students), Connexions, tutors and the sixth form leadership team to ask for help and advice. The best placements have taken into consideration what the student’s intentions are at the end of Year 13: it is important that placements reflect a student’s interests, educational strengths and long-term career choice.

The placement should be challenging, unpaid and different from any part-time work engaged in by the student.

Once students have secured their placement, the contact name, address, telephone number and email address is given to their tutor. The details are verified by the staff of GMS, so that visits or telephone conversations can take place during work experience week.

STEM Day/Activities

What is STEM?

STEM stands for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics. STEM is important because it pervades every part of our lives. Science is everywhere in the world around us; technology is continuously expanding into every aspect of our world; engineering is the basic designs of roads and bridges, but also tackles the challenges of changing global weather and environmentally-friendly changes to our home; mathematics is in every occupation, every activity of life. By exposing students to STEM and giving them opportunities to explore STEM-related concepts, they will develop a passion for it and, hopefully, pursue a job in a STEM field. A curriculum that is STEM-based has real-life situations to help the student learn. Programmes like Engineering For Kids integrates multiple classes to provide opportunities to see how concepts relate to life in order to hopefully spark a passion for a future career in a STEM field. STEM activities provide hands-on and minds-on lessons for the student. Making maths and science both fun and interesting helps the student to do much more than just learn.

Great Marlow School actively encourages students to study STEM and the school provides opportunities throughout KS3 and KS4 to inspire their interests in this field.

Examples of Activities at GMS promoting STEM

The Science Department organised a careers’ day at the software company SAS for the Year 9s and 10s. This fantastic opportunity was generated as part of Tech Week, an initiative that aims to steer the next generation towards studying STEM subjects: science, technology, engineering and maths. The trip provided the students with a great insight into how a global business works, students were given careers’ information. Active workshops gave students a unique opportunity to take on the role of business analysts and solve a real life business problem using SAS Visual Analytics.

Year 9 students have a Science Week, which includes workshops on scientific thinking and analytical skills. One example of a workshop is where he students were challenged to investigate the spread of a fatal disease through an airport.  In order to prevent a pandemic, the students had to identify the origin of the outbreak and develop a serum (with hindsight, very topical).

The activities in the workshop included: – Simulated outbreak and ELISA testing – Simulated blood typing and analysis – Personal voting systems and pandemic quiz

GMS encourages the participation of outside speakers. An embryologist, Danielle Breen, visited from the Thames Valley Fertility Clinic to speak with the whole of Year 11 and Year 10 triple science students. This was linked to the GCSE specification: the Homeostasis and Response module. Students learnt from an expert how IVF treatments were carried out from start to finish; how the body is manipulated with synthetic hormones; the success rates of average IVF cycles; and they debated the ethical issues surrounding the process. The timing of this fitted in with the careers’ fair that the students visited that day.

GMS supports visits from the first year of entry. In most years when it is being held, the Year 7 cohort visits the Big Bang Fair held at the Birmingham NEC. The Big Bang Fair invites an enormous range of companies, universities and, most importantly, students to come together to enjoy the world of science. At the fair, Year 7 students have the opportunity to visit different stalls and speak to many adults working in STEM careers, as well as taking part in many experiments! The fair includes many interactive shows, demonstrations and activities.

For A-level students, experts are invited in to give presentations and answer questions.

Employers

Are you an employer looking to work with a school?

Great Marlow School values developing relationships with local employers to help prepare students for the world of work and to support them in making informed career decisions.

Careers events need volunteers to work alongside the team in GMS, for example in delivering occupation/sector specific careers talks; offering interviewing practice; offering workplace visits; and being a stall holder at the annual Careers’ Fair.

If you would like to find out more, please make contact with Mrs G Southon, Career Guidance and Information Adviser on: careers@gms.bucks.sch.uk 

The Changing World of Work

Preparing students for work: help for parents and carers.

How can parents and carers help their son or daughter make the right decision about their future study or career options?

Exploring Labour Market Information ( LMI) is a good place to start.

The report below provides high quality information and advice to help young people make choices about their careers and developing their skills to meet employment demands, for now and the future.

It includes:

  • different work sectors across the LLEP area
  • numbers of people employed in those areas
  • skills that employers value
  • which occupations are changing
  • STEM in the labour market
  • growth areas in Buckinghamshire: creative, digital economy, engineering and manufacturing, life sciences and agri-tech, construction, health and social care.

Download ‘BTVLEP ‘Labour Market Intelligence Update for Buckinghamshire’

“Young adults who recall four or more encounters with employers while at school are five times less likely to be NEET* and earn on average, 18% more than peers who recall no such activities” (*Not in Education, Employment or Training) 

Dr Anthony Mann, Director of Research and Policy, Education and Employers Task Force (2018)

It is so important that careers-related learning happens in the classroom, not just at discrete careers events. GMS encourages all curriculum areas to embrace employer-led learning, using industry professionals and tailored resources to help deliver curriculum lessons, blending careers ideas with academic learning.

Research shows that this offers numerous benefits for our students:

  • Time: Employer-led curriculum learning can form a part of a planned timetable and so doesn’t have to take students away from lessons
  • New Ideas: Opportunities to discuss topics with external professionals who use subjects on a daily practical daily, enables the sharing of ideas and expertise
  • New Angles: Using real life examples to get across concepts students may find difficult to grasp, can boost students’ self-confidence and motivation
  • Enrichment: Employers’ engagement can add an extra element to deepen curriculum learning
  • Motivation: Students can see how subjects are useful and relevant in the real world. This raises motivation and engagement with subject learning, which can also lead to raising career aspirations.

Teachers work closely with Mrs Southon, the Career Guidance and Information Adviser in finding relevant contacts in the world of work.

Further Reading

If you would like to know more about developing ‘Careers in the Curriculum’ the following websites have lots of literature plus webinars:

(*NEET: Not in Education, Employment or Training)

Apprenticeships

APPRENTICESHIP FAQs FOR GMS SIXTH FORM (July 2020)

What’s the likely impact on Apprenticeship Recruitment of Covid-19? Whilst the number of apprenticeship starts as a whole are currently falling across the UK (compared to autumn 2019) many large employers, remain committed and passionate to recruiting apprentices, such as BAE Systems.

In addition, remember that a number of the skills/occupations that were in demand before and during COVID continue to be IN DEMAND now:

  • Health professionals – higher level
  • Bioscience/pharmaceuticals roles
  • Digital Technology
  • FinTech (‘Financial Technology’ is a growth area)
What advice would you give to a young person looking to enter the UK labour market in 2021?

I am not sure what kind of apprenticeship I want to do yet- what is the best way to go about researching apprenticeships opportunities?

 Keep up to date with labour market information (LMI) and remember:

  • Higher qualifications in some subject areas will open up more opportunities e.g. STEM /STEAM
  • It’s important to research roles AND sectors
  • Some professional roles cut-across sectors, which will give you more opportunities in the long term, eg: HR, IT, finance and marketing
  • Be aware, not all jobs are available on your doorstep (some have geographical clusters, e.g. bioscience, (check your local LMI). Check out local business opportunities
  • Make best use of social media – e.g.: set up Linked-In profile

Firstly, you need to be aware that in terms of overall approach and the skills needed to be successful, applying for an apprenticeship requires a very different ‘mindset’ from the one used to applying for university- the ‘UCAS mindset’ – that only really focuses on grades and producing a personal statement.

Applying for an apprenticeship requires a different mindset because the application process is more complicated, lengthy and assesses a wider range of skills and abilities over a number of stages.

A good starting point is to research job roles, companies and sectors that you might want to be an apprentice with as a project in its own right. You need to start your research early; otherwise, you may miss closing dates. The following are good places to start:

  • COMPANY WEBSITES Research company websites that may be of interest and make a note of what they are saying about their recruitment and the impact of Covid-19. Eg some employers will give dates when they expect recruitment activities to resume. As with many general jobs website, you can sometimes register an account with the employer or sign up to their newsletter. They will usually have direct links from their site through to their social media accounts such as Instagram, Twitter and Facebook.
  • Think about why a company appeals to you. A recruiter will want to see evidence that you have ‘done your homework’ about the company and can show how your values fit with their culture.
  • SOCIAL MEDIA Use social media to follow the careers’ pages of companies and hashtags for sectors that are of interest. For example, #JobsInHealth. Being up to date with an employer’s current issues and development is good preparation for completing a job application.
  • SECTOR SKILLS BODIES In some occupational areas you will find organisations that both promote their sector and advertise jobs, for example, in in creative – https://discovercreative.careers/#/ in IT – www.justit.co.uk 

 
When are vacancies advertised? Apprenticeship vacancies are driven by the needs of employers, so in many cases roles are advertised throughout the year. As a guide:

  • large employers, who have well established schemes, often post vacancies in the autumn with closing dates in January/February. They will usually have a ‘Careers’ page on their website where you can register your interest. Employers, in page 11 of WHICH Guide, will be in this category normally.
  • The majority of small and medium sized companies advertise in the spring, around/after, Easter just a couple of months before they want someone to start.
  • Higher or degree apprenticeships are competitive so the recruitment process tends to be rigorous, involving a number of different tasks to enable progression through to the next stage. You need to invest considerable time to each application, tailoring answers to what the employer is looking for – it is definitely not a soft option, so be prepared to set aside a considerable amount of time!
  • Time on your hands? Create examples you can use to answer competency questions on core employability skills that may  come up.
Where are vacancies advertised? There are a wide range of locations, so be methodically about checking sites on a regular basis and keep your own records:

  • Company sites –large employers, see page 11 of ‘Which Guide’
  • Job boards – e.g. milkround school leavers, young professionals
  • Main government site – worth registering with once you have a clear idea what type of vacancies you are looking for and locations- www.gov.uk/apply-apprenticeships They will only contact you once vacancies are live.
How do I know if a particular employer’s apprenticeship scheme is any good? Direct feedback from apprentices is a good place to start and there are a number of good independent sources available:

www.Ratemyapprenticeship.co.uk produces an annual ‘Top 100 Uk Employers’ ( currently 2019-20) based on reviews and honest feedback of over 4,000 young people who completed an apprenticeship last year.

www.notgoingtouni.co.uk  has ‘Case Studies’ of current apprentices experiences and interesting blogs sharing recruitment tips.
I still have some questions about apprenticeships and whether they are for me…can I talk to somebody? Mrs Southon, GMS’s Careers Guidance and Information Adviser is available to meet with students in person to support all aspects of the post 6th Form Careers planning. Please contact her directly to arrange an appointment: gsouthon@gms.bucks.sch.uk

Classroom to Career January 2024

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