Our philosophy
Our primary aim with Careers provision at The Abbey is simple - to ensure that all of our students are “future ready”!
Whether this is by providing opportunities for students to develop their employability skills or to introduce them to speakers from different industry sectors in order to discover how they got to where they are today, future readiness takes many forms and is completely personalised to each and every student to suit their needs, interests and aspirations.
Our programme
Our comprehensive Careers programme is built around the use of the Unifrog platform, which all students and their parents have access to, and is fully-embedded into our curriculum at all Key Stages, As well as specific Careers-related information, students have the opportunity to access our comprehensive Enterprise and Enrichment activities. These are all designed to help our students discover and explore opportunities outside the classroom which contribute to development of all the employability skills that employers are looking for.
This starts for students in the Junior School where the focus is about avoiding the stereotypes that children start to develop at a very early age and continues when students join the Senior School where they are introduced to personality and aptitude profiling to help them begin to understand what their preferences are and what subject choices they might make.
Opportunities to find out about different career pathways are provided during “Skills4Life” sessions, assemblies, careers talks and as part of their normal academic curriculum. In addition, every student in the school will participate every month in our “Careers Tuesday” programme to explore age-group relevant careers-related skills and information that are aligned to the Careers Development Institute learning pathway.
As well as being introduced to age-relevant materials, each year, students will update their profiles and look at how this might have altered the pathways available to them, as they mature and develop a wider range of employability skills.
Parents have the opportunity to access Unifrog with their own account. This links to their daughter’s account, allowing them to keep up to date about recent activity on the platform. Parents will also be able to search Unifrog as if they were in the same year group as their daughter, to allow them to experience fully what their daughter has access to.
KS3 - Upper 3, Lower 4 & Upper 4: “Discovering new opportunities”
In the Lower School, the approach is purposefully passive in terms of these opportunities being provided to the students rather than them feeling that they need to actively seek them out.
However, every student can use the Unifrog platform to undertake their own research into possible subject and career choices, if they want to, and to start logging their experiences in a central location that they can refer back to in the future.
KS4 - Lower 5 and Upper 5: “Exploring options”
As students move into the Fifth Form, they are encouraged to be more proactive in terms of their subject and career choices for Sixth Form and beyond.
“Futures Week”, monthly “Careers Tuesday” sessions, lunchtime Careers talks, ARCH events and access to individual meetings with the Careers team are available for students to participate in and make best use of.
Students will also be given the opportunity to experience Sixth Form life and taster lessons in subjects that are only available at A Level, to help them develop their own ideas about what they are interested in and how this might help them to shape their own future aspirations.
Furthermore, every student will be offered a “Next Steps” conversation in Lower 5 and a “Sixth Form options” conversation in Upper 5. These are conducted by an experienced member of the Careers team, and are designed to help students clarify their choices and identify possible pathways into the Sixth Form and beyond, which they may not have considered yet.
Compliance and outcomes
The Abbey Careers programme is designed to provide appropriate information at different stages in the journey of students through the school that complies with all of the relevant government advice and statutory guidance:
Gatsby benchmarks
Throughout, the programme is aligned to the eight Gatsby Benchmarks that underpin a fully rounded and well-designed approach to Careers and ensures that the school is filling the students with confidence, providing a clear purpose to everything they are doing and encouraging a positive and joyous environment for them to explore who they are and what they want to do with their lives beyond the school gates.
Baker Clause
As part of various events and activities, such as our Careers Fair, the Lower 5 Futures Week and ARCH events, the school provides opportunities for external providers and employers to access our students to provide them with information and advice about all the options available in the future.
Green skills and careers
In line with the recent Government strategy for Sustainability and Climate Change, our Careers programme ensures that “green skills and careers” are at the forefront of the opportunities available to students.
In a simple phrase, we are making sure that all our students are “future ready”!
