Careers Advice at Schools

[miteshb]

One of the purposes of education is for students to be more employable when they finish the education process. So I'm wondering:

• What are the careers advice provisions at your child's school?
• Do you think they are made aware of the multiple career options out there and the paths to reach them?
• Does the school teach enough about employability skills?
• Are you as a parent involved?

What does everyone think?

Did your DD request to see the Adviser Katy? If so, what did she hope to get out of the interview?

Many people don't understand that a professional Careers Adviser isn't there to tell young people what to be/what to do next, and quite often that seems to be what they want. In your DD's case, it seems that she had her plan organised anyway. If she had seen me, I definitely would have wanted to talk to her about back-up plans in case things didn't work out as she hoped.

To put a Careers Adviser's role in very brief terms, we provide information and guidance about careers and decision-making. Depending on the client & what they want from us, this could include:

• Exploring a client's interests, skills and ambitions with them. What do they enjoy, both in and out of school. What are they good at? Do they have talents that they might want to use in a career or develop as a hobby? What do they think they're rubbish at? Why?
• What career ideas do they have? What do they know/like about the careers that they have come up with? Where have they got the info from & is that source reliable? Are there other careers that might offer similar things?
• Talking about personal circumstances. Are there health issues or anything else that might be a barrier to their plans? Might there be ways of overcoming these?
• Discussing career planning. How do they come up with ideas? How else could they get ideas or develop them further? How to they make decisions: considering different approaches etc?
• Discussing the labour market, looking at trends and implications for them & their ideas. Realism has to be addressed, without putting clients off striving for their dreams.
• Talking about next steps. What are the choices available, given that young person's interests? Are there options that they may not be aware of? How do they feel about them? How do they move forward from here? More research: websites/reading/talking to people? Visits to Open Days or employers? Work experience? Applications to X or Y, deadlines etc...

In my case, I can also incorporate the info from a psychometric test into the discussion. In any case, you can see that it's a lot to cover in 45 minutes. I think each client deserves a full hour & that's not often the case in most schools.

I apologise for the length of this entry, but I've tried to hold back - I could have gone on & on....

Connexions provision has been absolutely slashed in my area. The careers provision at DCs school seems weak, based on what DCs have told me and as a parent I've never been involved.

The only advice I've had from a careers adviser re. A level options and University choices was yesterday, on this forum, from CareersDragon. It was deeply appreciated but made me realise what I'd missed. The Sixth Form College that DS is hoping to go to has a reputation for being more helpful. We shall see!

I agree with Careers Dragon, and also feel the role of a careers adviser is often misunderstood. During a careers interview there would be in my experience problems in many of the areas mentioned by careers dragon and it would easily take 4O plus minutes to explore one issue and for the student to recognise and find a way forward. For example students often make decisions just on what parents have suggested or on what their friends are doing. Whilst this maybe a good decision it is not necessarily always the case. . It would need a series of interviews and a good careers education programme to fully explore all the opportunities.

No; it's a standard 15 minutes they all get - no choice

I had to write a letter to allow her 'not' to go to the local 6th form college & as for the hoops I jumped through to get her 'allowed' to go to 'open days' for the colleges she wanted to go to

My oldest is in Y10 and it has been woeful so far, just a box ticking meeting with his tutor which lasted all of 5 minutes and just ended in him saying maybe accounting so he should choose Maths at GCSE (like there is any choice there!).

It sounds as if what your DD received Katy was a diagnostic/ screening interview, rather than a full guidance interview - which would not be possible in 15 minutes. The purpose of these is to identify those students who might need extra assistance; those are then seen again. At least I hope that's what it was! It is shocking if that is what passes as a guidance interview these days! To even screen pupils in 15 minutes is pushing it, as there is no time to find out the relevant information, let alone go through anything else...

It also explains many of the negative stories that are heard about Careers Advisers saying x or y. How could any of the pupils know that 15 minutes together wasn't an authentic "guidance interview", and how could that poor adviser do any better?

The hoops that you had to go through to investigate options other than the 6th form proves the point of this thread. At least there was an impartial careers adviser that brought to pupils' attention the other options. Many schools in England are doing it all themselves...

I checked with DD everyone had 15mins very few had longer

We found the other colleges ourselves and wouldn't have been allowed to visit unless I'd caused a fuss

Careers Advisor are great; less sure about school ones

Shocked

And the trouble is, that so often parents don't realise what their DC are missing...
(Thank you Phaedra for the appreciation!)

Oddboots most of the guidance interviews are targeted at Y11s, so I wouldn't worry yet. But, some popular college courses are filled up by Xmas, and apprenticeships start being advertised around Xmas too. The better 6th forms usually have quite early application deadlines, and if anyone wants to sit scholarship exams, then an early guidance interview would be advised (certainly in the Autumn term)...

There's lots of information about careers and courses on the National Careers website if you're in England, although it's not specifically targeted at young people.
In Wales, people can look at www.careerswales.com, which I think is a better website for DCs.
If anyone wants to seek private independent guidance, I would direct them to the professional register of the Career Development Institute www.theCDI.net, where you can be sure that practitioners are qualified, experienced, and adhere to the professional standards laid down by the CDI.

Thanks CareersDragon. My DS thinks he wants to do something engineering/surveying so we have some ideas of where to head.

I've done a fair bit of research of local options but it may be worth investing in either a one-to-one interview or a psychometric assessment, I'd hate him to grow up thinking I've pushed him into something.

Umbrellahead. I didn't mean to suggest that every parent is capable of sorting out careers advice, and I did say my DH goes into schools where we are not parents. It is reasonable for schools to organise careers fairs and there is usually someone who has careers responsibility within the school.

I am well aware that some schools may not have many professional parents, but that does not mean there are not people locally who can give information about the route into a career. A whole variety of careers. My DH has his own stand, lots of literature, and takes young members of staff with him. He also sees young people as possible employees!

I think a starting point for all young people is to narrow down what subjects a young person really likes and what they are interested in. That could be fashion or film making! As parents we can all talk to our children about what interests them. Also, some of us get into the right career later in life. Life experience can point you in the right direction and there is nothing wrong with that!

Missed off the link for the National Careers Service: nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/Pages/Home.aspx

Perhaps some MNers might go and ask about careers provision & guidance in their DC schools & tell schools what they expect? It doesn't get over the funding issue & how schools can pay to provide this, but at least they would know that there is a demand for it...

Wales isn't much better. Careers Wales has been reorganised from the top down, many workers have been made redundant and the focus for provision in schools is NEET- risk and vulnerable groups (LAC and LDD pupils). Tough for the rest.

We rely very much on the goodwill of our advisers going beyond their remit if they can, in order for all our pupils to have at least a group interview (they all used to be guaranteed an hour's one-to-one). We do Careers Fairs, college visits, business people into curriculum lessons, enterprise activities etc but this needs to be backed up by the adviser service for them to be effective.

It's criminal.

That's interesting gobbin I had thought Wales and Scotland had fared better than England with regards to cuts and redundancies.

I read today that even the recent DfS report has criticised the current situation of careers advice in schools. Seems like its only Gove that thinks it's all better under the coalition

I've only skim-read the thread, so not sure if anyone's already pointed this out, but Ofsted published a report into Careers Guidance in the Autumn. Their conclusion was that it is not currently done well across the board.

I also read an article in a local glossy freebie mag a few months back about something that might become a new trend ... a private company running a careers advice service, used by private schools, but also by individual parents wanting personalised careers counseling for their DCs. Clearly a gap in the market has been identified, and this may well become as ubiquitous as private tutoring in years to come!

Only skim read too... But I thought that schools had their own budgets to spend on careers advice. My friend is an ex Connexions careers advisor and now runs her own company as a consultant talking to different schools and colleges and running sessions for them. Which would imply that lobbying your school could make a difference?

Hi All,

Another Careers Adviser here - I completely agree with what everyone is saying about a lack of consistent, high quality Careers Advice in ALL schools - there is such disparity between counties, let alone schools.

In Surrey, I have seen full time CA's still in post, doing excellent work - and the children from these schools are invited to their local University for conferences and lectures, they have massive, shared schools Careers Fairs (am going to one today - unpaid as a freelancer to ensure I keep up to speed with local employers/colleges). However over the border in Hampshire - North East Hampshire to be fair, not further south near Portsmouth (they seem to have more budget) - there is nothing! There will be no NE Hants kids at the Careers Fair which is less than 20 minutes from them - they won't be invited as they are not in Surrey's network.

I know of one full time CA in Hampshire - there must be more- but I only have heard of one in my area. Most Hampshire schools have a CA going in ONE day a week only - to serve around 1400 young people.

The main problem as I see it is that there is little or no careers education group work now as it no longer required by statute (Education Act 2011). This means the work CA's can do really early on psychometrics e.g. using Fast Tomato as a class, online and then discussing job families to help kids start to understand themselves in year 7 and 8 is utterly lost to many schools. If young people can start to position themselves a little before options selections even, and way before having to make any firm decisions in year 11 this gives them a fighting chance of making a good job of choosing a career that might suit them.

But if they do not study themselves (using psychometrics as just one tool) and if they do not get taught research skills during group work - then how on earth can they start to navigate the thousands of websites on offer? How do they then figure out who they are and what might suit them? The lucky ones have parents with the time and energy to help. The others may not. When employed by guidance agencies I am only seeing Pupil Premium and NEET kids (sorry - I hate using these words as they seem like labels, and all these kids are fantastic). What worries me is that in a year of working one day a week for one school I have not seen a single young person that I would describe as the average Jo or Joe, in a comfortable family background, with good academic achievement...they are missed off the list as their need is not considered to be great enough.

Yet the situation is dire in terms of unemployed CA's. Everyone I know is working for maybe one day a week for each guidance agency (I am on the books of four!!!) which means you can't build a relationship with classes, let alone individuals.

It is making me change the way I work to try to help young parents and parents individually - and keeping costs as low as possible. The problem is that parents are happy to pay for maths tutors and swimming but Careers Advice is perhaps seen as a school's duty?

Sorry for the long post. x

Sorry - another thing!

KatOD - your friend who is approaching schools is brave - the problem in my area is that the guidance agencies win the bid for the school service provision by going in with a really low quote to secure the relationship- and they will sign them up to a one or two year Service Level Agreement. Then any CA who tries to go in direct or tries to 'poach' their business will be blacklisted from their books.

The schools then get savvy and form links with other schools to bulk buy services from said guidance agency - meaning the relationship becomes entrenched and the CA who tried to go direct gets blacklisted from not just that one school - but now also all the schools that join forces in that area to book on preferential agency rates.

I really hope for your friend that this is not the case in her area. It is massively difficult in mine- I'd like to approach three local schools (my child's own school in fact) but I know the only way I can do this is to keep applying to the agency which owns the SLA- which is not recruiting.

The other issue is that agencies are now really aware of CA's going direct and are bringing this up in meetings with heads- they then showcase their new resources (software which can be tailored to the schools' needs) which CA's can't compete with very easily- so they are trying to undermine CA's going in individually.

It is pretty competitive and aggressive out there - the guidance agencies that go up against each other in the same geographic space do not speak well or kindly of one another, shall we say. I never tell an agency who else I'm working with as this could impact on my being on their books.

I wish we could go back to pre Education Act 2011 and hope that like all things government, there will be a U-turn at some point back to CA's in schools who are fully qualified and on the Career Development Institute register - meaning impartiality and quality.

x

Agree with pretty much everything you say cats (I'm a careers adviser too). I think by posting on here the OP is trying to gauge support for careers advice from parents.

Sadly, in my experience there aren't enough parents who feel strongly enough about the importance of careers education and guidance in schools - it gets lost among all the other issues in education like exam results and free schools. Michael Gove's recent comments don't help, nor does all the bad press along the lines of "my careers adviser told me I'd never make it in x career but look at me now."

There has been some excellent work going on in the sector, even during the Connexions era when careers support was targeted towards so-called vulnerable groups, but I think as a relatively small and poorly understood profession we are (temporarily at least) on our last legs.

Although I know hamiltonandnaele's post will be deleted, it is good timing that this thread has been brought back. Statutory guidence has changed; all schools (including academies) have a statutory duty to provide careers guidenceand inspiration too all students from year 8. Schools gave been told that this area will impact on their Ofsted rating of leadership, so you should see careers provision improving as there are several aspects that schools need toensure every child has access to

I think the ebook is a very good idea.

hamilton- you want to know what I think? I think you should pay for advertising your product!

Hi Fram, you are right if we were trying to sell something, but we are not - the book has yet to be completed, so we honestly have nothing to gain in that respect at all. However we keep seeing how concerned parents are about rubbish careers support, and we wanted to try and get some helpful feedback on our concept and whether mums feel it would help their children.

H&N why not see whether you could be involved in a webchat or Q&A on the subject by approaching MNHQ directly? that might be a more appropriate route