LifeSkills National Careers Week 2015

LifeSkills National Careers Week is a celebration of careers guidance and free resources in education across the UK.

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How To Plan Your NCW 2015

  Plan your NCW with our How To guide

Over the past few years NCW has continued to provide you with lots of FREE quality careers resources. For 2015, we are introducing a 'How To' guide in response to our feedback from 2014's event. A short guide with tips and resources to share with your staff and students.

Don't forget, if you haven't already, sign-up to our FREE newsletter with the latest careers opportunities and follow us on Twitter network @NCW2015.

We look forward to hearing about your participation and feedback over the coming months.

The NCW 2015 Team

*Click the image to view the guide

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Day 5 What is good careers advice? By Regional Ambassador Lynda Dixon

What is good careers advice?

When I started teaching Careers it was because the usual (and truly excellent) member of staff was seriously ill and I was asked to plug the gap until he returned.  Always keen for a new challenge I accepted. I had no qualification other than having taught careers in his department. Up to that point, I followed his suggested lesson plans and just did as I was told.

Then, suddenly, I was in charge. It took me several months to realise just what I had got myself into but I threw myself into the task regardless – and loved it! Naturally, behind every role in school there is a lot of theory and I felt it would be advisable to get a CEIAG qualification so that I felt less like I was sitting on a wobbly stool! I was not a Careers Advisor – but the overseer of Careers Education, Information, Advice and Guidance (CEIAG) in my school. This is an important point because you do need to draw on the services of a trained and impartial Careers Advisor in school.  Some schools are using companies like this http://www.isco.org.uk where services can be bought in for a daily rate. There will be times when you are on the receiving end of questions you can’t answer but your CA can. There’s no disgrace in telling students that you don’t know an answer but that you will find out. A great port of call is this site http://www.outstandingcareers.co.uk. With loads of pointers, information and resources, you are sure to find help there. Don’t be afraid to point young people in the direction of sites like the National Careers Service (https://nationalcareersservice.direct.gov.uk/Pages/Home.aspx) where they can chat to an Advisor or perhaps your area still has Connexions and their site sometimes has an online chat facility.

There are some key principles of good careers education. Firstly, it should be impartial. It is not your job to make them change their minds. I remember feeling particularly annoyed when one of my Year 10 boys, with a huge potential for enterprise, was told by a Careers Advisor ‘You can do that later in life. What will you do when you leave school then?’

In my area, one of the big problems we had was that other local schools with sixth forms did everything in their power to ‘encourage’ their students to stay at their school and not look at other options. They had a vested interest in keeping their own numbers up. Personal feelings must be pushed aside and children will sometimes have to overcome stereotypical views at home. In one case, a boy told me ‘People like us don’t do University’. His parents had killed off any hope that he, quite a clever boy, might be able to succeed in Higher Education. I disputed this, of course, but his parents’ views won in the end.

One of the hardest areas of Careers Education is expecting students to be realistic. Many are not! How do you help little Billy understand that he probably won’t be able to be a brain surgeon? Left to their own devices, children will want to be pop stars, footballers – or simply just not work as they are going to win the Lottery. Letting them down gently whilst not shattering their dreams is tough. One of the reasons I loved using The Real Game with younger students was that it was governed by five main principles. One of these was ‘Follow your heart’. But this was backed up with a hefty dose of reality and stressed the need to know yourself, be realistic and always have a Plan B. One of my students was a truly excellent footballer. He was selected for Manchester United boys and from that day did no really meaningful work in school. As far as he was concerned, his future was sorted. Why did he need qualifications? Three years later he was dropped from the Junior team and found himself in the predicament of having no qualifications and no experience other than football. There was no Plan B.

As a Careers Co-ordinator or a member of the Leadership team you need to know what your responsibilities are. This document should hopefully clarify your statutory duty:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/careers-guidance-for-young-people-in-schools

Although this document focuses on Key Stage 3 and 4, recommendations from other agencies and businesses say that some element of Careers Education ought to be present from Primary school so that young people are more aware of opportunities, their own strengths and weaknesses and have direct experience of the workplace.

One of the best pieces of advice I was given was to be in touch with other schools in the area, meet up if you can and discuss what each school does. This way you can share resources, maybe organise events together to keep costs down and tap into the expertise of others.

Did I provide good careers advice? I hope so. One of the best parts of doing this job is knowing that you have made a difference. Recently I got an email from an ex-student. In it he told me:

“The point of this email was to thank you for your help through school. If it wasn't for you I don't think I would have near enough confidence as I do now to walk into meetings with clients and be able to hold my own.”

To me, this is what matters and makes the job absolutely worthwhile.

Blog post by Lynda Dixon, Director of Enterprise Gran @e_gran

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Skills for Care Newsletter - NCW2014 Edition

  Share this newsletter with your contacts

Best Wishes,

LifeSkills National Careers Week 2014

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Resources sponsored by NHS Careers 07/03/14

NHS Careers Opportunities

NHS Careers is the careers information service for the NHS in England and is part of Health Education England.

We support careers advisers, NHS healthcare organisations, schools and colleges with a series of resources and tools to help you bring the 350 plus NHS opportunities to life. We run web chats, and provide a career mapper, videos, and a course finder to help you. Click on the links for information and make sure you're registered to receive our regular newsletter.

We look forward to seeing you at the National Career Guidance Shows in Leicester on 12 March and London on 26 March, and at the Big Bang Fair in Birmingham from 13 to 16 March!

Information for careers advisers and teachers

Everything from a career mapper and job descriptions to videos and information about our national competition.

Teaching resources

An online toolkit of activities and multimedia resources that support careers education.

Step into the NHS website

Specifically for 14 to 19 year olds to help them find out what sort of career would suit them, schools competition details, videos and more.

Step into the NHS national schools competition

Get your year 8 and 9 students thinking about an NHS career and they could win a fab prize!

Information | Teaching Resources | Step into the NHS | Competition | NHS Careers Zone

The LifeSkills National Careers Week Digital Guide is out now!

The LifeSkills National Careers Week Digital Guide has now been published. Featuring articles by O2, Sky, LifeSkills, Virgin Media, NHS Careers and much more. To view, click here LifeSkills National Careers Week 2014 Digital Guide.

Did you know that Issuu has an app where you can view our Digital Guide on your Android smartphone/tablet? Click here to download the app.

New resources on our website!

We have lots of new resources on our new look website to help you support your involvement with LifeSkills National Careers Week 2014.

17 Regional Ambassadors sharing their campaigns for NCW 2014

A Careers Zone with even more employer opportunities on Future Jobs

The NEW official NCW Digital Guide

Download our official NCW Posters

Download our NCW Tips Sheet

Download 5 Employability Cards

Watch our 25 Job Profile Films

Watch our NCW Promo Film & Advice Tips

Read our NCW Tumblr, featuring articles by one of our Regional Ambassadors Lynda Dixon

NCW2014 Latest News including NCW2015 Dates!

We can now announce the dates for NCW2015 are the 2nd to 6th of March! If you haven't already - sign-up here. It takes 2 minutes and then we can shout about you and your establishment.

Follow us on our Twitter network to be kept up to date with the latest news and competitions - @CareersWeek

The NCW Digital Guide will be available as a PDF download next week! We'll be sending out a NCW wrap-up newsletter asking for your photos and events to be shared on our wesbite, as well as your feedback so we can make NCW2015 even better!

Careers Zone's Latest Clients

To help provide information on a wide array of career offerings and pathways we have some great supporters of LifeSkills National Careers Week 2014:

LifeSkills

GSK

Creative Pioneers

Taste Success

The Institute of the Motor Industry

Virgin Media

GoThinkBig (O2)

Freshfields

Careers in Racing

Careers that Move

Sky

Hospitality Guild

NHS Careers

BDO

Gap Medics

ACCA

HSS Hire

Milkround

EY

Skills for Care

Nestle

Win work experience with a football journalist at a Barclays Premier League fixture during the 2013/14 season. Click the link to enter and find out more www.footballwriters.co.uk/features/barclays-aspiring-journalist     

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Day 4 - Work Experience by Regional Ambassador Lynda Dixon

Whether you are working in Secondary school and have to set up a block placement for a group of children or in a Primary school and want to allow children to experience workplaces for a half-day or day visit, you will rely on local businesses to help you with your task.

In Primary school, any school visit will contain a careers thread and relevant questions will help draw out from the children some ideas about working life. I had the joy of visiting some Northumberland schools where they had this down to a fine art. Topic-based learning is particularly useful for Primary careers work. One example was a school where they were looking at food production from farm to fork. As part of this they visited a farm and a baker’s shop. The Careers opportunities were massive and the culmination of this was that the children planted their own wheat, invited a local artist in to make a clay oven in the school garden, harvested and ground their wheat, made bread in the outdoor oven and then ate it hot in the garden. Those children had the opportunity to meet and speak to a farmer, a baker, a shop assistant, a potter and a chef in just a few weeks. These may or may not have been careers that they were interested in but at least it gave them a clear picture of the pros and cons of each job. This type of activity shows the link between careers and enterprise education really clearly.

As far as a block placement in secondary school is concerned, your school may not wish to go through this process. In that case, it would be a good idea to try to build in some type of business experience in a voluntary capacity. It is worth asking your students if they already do this – you might be surprised. Many young people work at local stables or kennels, have a paper round or run errands for elderly neighbours. Some may be young carers and have experience of taking responsibility for a parent, grandparent or younger sibling. Encourage those who do these things to add their experiences to their portfolio. For those who don’t, try to make links locally for options e.g. in charity shops or care homes.

A vital part of work experience is the preparation that happens beforehand. Despite all the organising, if your students don’t have a grounding in and awareness of work skills, they will be at an immediate disadvantage. I have some horrendous personal experience of this and learned my lesson for future occasions. Don’t just assume that they know how to behave in the workplace. The way they dress, speak to people, their attitude and punctuality are so vitally important. The build up to work experience week must cover all aspects of how things should be in the workplace. It is very different to school and they need to know that!

The big headache comes with the block placement week, if your school does this. Again, I was lucky to have the services of the local Education Business Partnership and they took a huge amount of weight off my shoulders – but it is still a big job. We used to send out all of Year 10 en masse. They were prepared for this event weeks in advance and given a set time to find their own suitable placement. I use the word ‘suitable’ as have had some strange requests in the past. One girl wanted to work with a blacksmith and one in a tattoo parlour. Clearly there are limits to what you can do due to health and safety. Placements in hospitals and police stations are limited and those who fully expected to go into a hairdressers and start perming, cutting and colouring had big shocks ahead. In my experience, students who found their own placements were much happier than those who didn’t.

The process is long and difficult and I used to dread the early morning phone calls to indicate that something went wrong, but on the whole the students gained such a lot from the experience. I remember going to see a girl who was working on the shop floor in Iceland. The Manager pointed me in the direction of the staff canteen. There I found her asleep with her head on the table. She could not believe how hard it was, on her feet, working from 9 o’clock until 5:30. Another looked at me as if I were completely insane when I showed her the details of her placement and she had to work Saturdays.  The issue of insurance and health and safety is massive – and yet another reason why I was delighted that the EBP covered that side of things. They were definitely money well spent!

Of course there were success stories, just as in Primary. One girl went to a local dog grooming parlour, to work on the administrative side of the business. She suggested a better way of keeping digital records and set up the system for the business. They were absolutely thrilled and still use her system today. The business owner said she would have had to pay someone to do that for her and so in that particular case it was clear to see the gains to the student as well as the business.

Even though work experience is a mammoth task to organise, it is well worth the time and trouble. Our students kept a diary each day and noted what they had learned and where they felt they could do better. This was then used in feedback after the placement. Having talked this through, it was then an experience they could add to their careers file.

Once back in school, a good work placement or an engaging school visit can be just the encouragement some children need to raise aspiration and work harder to achieve their goals.

In tomorrow’s blog, we will try to ascertain what makes good careers and guidance.

Blog post by Lynda Dixon, Director of Enterprise Gran @e_gran

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Find the careers you want with EY

  FIND THE CAREER YOU WANT

At EY we know that everyone's different and there's no one right answer. That's why we've developed several great ways to start a career in business. We also recognize that the choices you make now really matter, so we've created a range of content to help you work out exactly what's right for you.

Start by downloading our business careers guide, which explains what all the options are for school leavers with an interest in a career in business.

You can also watch the animation we commissioned that explains ore about what we actually do here at EY.

Or take a look around our school leaver site, where we have plenty of videos, blog posts and articles from our current school leavers, and tips on topics like the application process.

Find our more at ukcareerguide.ey.com

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Pathways sponsored by Virgin Media 06/03/14

Pathways sponsored by Virgin Media 06/03/14

Careers with Virgin Media

In a digital world that provides us with so much choice at the click of a mouse it is important not just to search careers advice but to actually find answers. That's why Virgin Media are proud to support LifeSkills National Careers Week 2014. As a provider of career pathways from work experience, internships, graduate scheme and traineeships through to our award winning apprenticeship program, we believe that the investment in our people will continue to drive our business forward. It's important to celebrate the fact that we are all different and acknowledge that there is not just one right way to start your career but that it is more important to find the right way for you.

Virgin Media provides broadband, TV, mobile and home phone services to some of the happiest customers in the UK. We believe in fantastic products and amazing service - all provided by great people. And that's where you come in.

We want all of our people to love their work, to feel valued and be inspired. So what does that mean for you? Plenty! The freedom to do more for customers. The time to take care of the fine details. The scope to think of new and better ways to do things. The room to balance work with the rest of your life. The perfect place to build a career. And that's just for starters.

Great people doing great work deserve great benefits. That's why we give our people the recognition and rewards they deserve for the hard work they do. So join us and you'll enjoy a variety of benefits, including a generous holiday allowance, contributory pension scheme and, of course, discounts on mobile, broadband and cable services.

Virgin Media Apprenticeships Scheme | Virgin Media Careers Zone

The LifeSkills National Careers Week Digital Guide is out now!

The LifeSkills National Careers Week Digital Guide has now been published. Featuring articles by O2, Sky, LifeSkills, Virgin Media, NHS Careers and much more. To view, click here LifeSkills National Careers Week 2014 Digital Guide.

Did you know that Issuu has an app where you can view our Digital Guide on your Android smartphone/tablet? Click here to download the app.

New resources on our website!

We have lots of new resources on our new look website to help you support your involvement with LifeSkills National Careers Week 2014.

17 Regional Ambassadors sharing their campaigns for NCW 2014

A Careers Zone with even more employer opportunities on Future Jobs

The NEW official NCW Digital Guide

Download our official NCW Posters

Download our NCW Tips Sheet

Download 5 Employability Cards

Watch our 25 Job Profile Films

Watch our NCW Promo Film & Advice Tips

Read our NCW Tumblr, featuring articles by one of our Regional Ambassadors Lynda Dixon and Pitman Training

 What to do next?

If you haven't already - sign-up here. It takes 2 minutes and then we can shout about you and your establishment.

Please share this with colleagues, friends, PTAs and employer stakeholders wherever you are. The more we work together the better the future for our youth.

Follow us on our social media networks to keep up to date with the latest news and resources.

Careers Zone's Latest Clients

To help provide information on a wide array of career offerings and pathways we have some great new supporters of LifeSkills National Careers Week 2014:

LifeSkills

GSK

Creative Pioneers

Taste Success

The Institute of the Motor Industry

Virgin Media

GoThinkBig (O2)

Freshfields

Careers in Racing

Careers that Move

Sky

Hospitality Guild

NHS Careers

BDO

Gap Medics

ACCA

HSS Hire

Milkround

EY

Skills for Care

Nestle

Win work experience with a football journalist at a Barclays Premier League fixture during the 2013/14 season. Click the link to enter and find out more www.footballwriters.co.uk/features/barclays-aspiring-journalist     

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Take a career MOT to help you on your path to a profession

A recent report claimed that 37% of young people look to television programmes and 8% to celebrities for their careers guidance*, quite shocking stats when you really think about what is being said here; we can soon begin to build a picture which allows it to becomes clear why there is an ongoing cause for concern as to whether or not the career advice, help and support young people require to make sound and apt decisions about their careers is actually available.

Due to a reworking of the careers advice system a couple of years ago, responsibility was placed more so on schools to deliver impartial career information, support and guidance to their pupils. But, with research confirming only one in three teachers are confident they are providing legally required careers advice, there is great cause for concern for the younger generation.

If you are at the stage in life where it’s time to make some important decisions about your career, it’s extremely important you acquire the advice and support you need to make informed decisions which effectively will shape your future.

Many know from a young age what they want to be, but for many of us, this does change over the years as we begin to build our personal traits, different perspectives and outlooks. Although there are lots of people who start off in a certain profession and then change career to something completely different for a number of different reasons, its best to try and get a firm grasp of what you are good at or what you enjoy, what skills you have and a profession which will best suit your character, early on. Considering you will spend a huge percentage of your adult life working, we cannot undermine how important the decisions you make now are when it comes to your career.

There is currently an ongoing debate on whether or not there is sufficient career advice and support which young education leavers require in order to make sound and apt decisions when considering the world of employment and what career paths are available. But, with initiatives such as National Careers Week #NCW2014 and Skills London, it is becoming evident that more resources are being set up as an obligation to help give you the advice and information you need to get to where you want to go in your career, and if you’re unsure – don’t worry, there are tools, such as The Pitman Training Career MOT, and opportunities to gain experience on the job with the rise in apprenticeships to help you figure things out and make informed decisions.

The Career MOT is a fun, free app which was developed to help inspire those unhappy in their current occupations, confused as to what roles to apply for, those returning to work, leaving school, college or university and those that would like to take their career to the next level, but unsure of what that role would be. The app aims to help you identify your key skills and character traits and show how these can help launch you into perfectly suited careers, and advise you on some of the paths you can follow to get there.

After creating your own personal avatar in the Career MOT app you then take a quick psychometric test to identify which skills of your character traits feed into your most suited careers and how your personal strengths could help you excel in certain roles and how your existing skills could already open doors to new opportunities.

Telling you if you’re an ENTJ (Extraverted iNtuitive Thinking Judging) personality, or perhaps a INTP (Introverted Intuitive Thinking Perceiving) personality, the Career MOT offers personal results that best match your temperament to careers and traits.

Even if you know what you want to do career wise and how to get there, it may be interesting to still have a go the app and see your results – would they suggest a different direction? They may confirm that you are choosing the right career for you, and we’re sure you’ll agree it’s always nice to have a bit of reassurance.

All in all, although it can seem quite daunting you’re at a very exciting stage - Choosing your career, or working out what you want to do and how to get there. Consider your personality alongside work related strengths, to help highlight how your character will be one of our biggest assets in your careers. With this in mind you’ll hopefully be one step closer to determining the right choices for your career.

* http://uk.pearson.com/home/news/2013/june/a-third-of-young-people-get-careers-advice-from-tv.html

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Day 3 - Business Links by Regional Ambassadors by Lynda Dixon

Day 3 – Business Links

Where do children find most of their role models? The answer is probably at home or on television. This gives them a fairly limited view of what careers are available to them. At school they are surrounded by teachers – some of whom may well have had previous careers but many have not. Children need to have the opportunity to meet and talk to adults from the world of work in order that they may discover the wealth of opportunities open to them. My personal preference was to invite people into school who broke the stereotypical mould. It was so enlightening for me to see the children’s reactions in some cases.

I was lucky that we had an amazing Education Business Partnership that offered a package of events aimed at different age groups. It wasn't cheap but was certainly money well spent. The presentations they did were all fun but with a serious message and certainly opened the eyes of the students. Meeting a male nurse and a female engineer helped to widen their horizons and see that the world was indeed their oyster.

Creating good business links takes time and a lot of communication. As teachers, we must remember that business people have jobs to do and for some of them, getting away from that job and giving up time free of charge is almost impossible. We must also remember that there needs to be a gain for both parties. Many businesses worry that students do not have the right skills for their workplace. Creating a link where they can meet and talk to students helps them understand what happens in school and gives them an opportunity to shape what happens. Before any visit is made to school, the teacher and business person must sit down and plan timings, aims and outcomes. Both parties must feel confident that they will gain positively from this venture and have a clear understanding of classroom rules and procedures. I have seen some disastrous business links due to inadequate planning. As teachers, we have to remember that the visitor may not know at what level to speak to children of a particular age group or to vary the activities to prevent boredom. An open and honest relationship is a necessity.

One of my local Academies started inviting local business people in for breakfast. This meant that the business person didn't have to eat into their working day and students could still attend all lessons as normal. The meetings were fantastic to witness.

Schools have other great resources, untapped in many cases – Governors and parents. Try to create a database of people who will happily come and talk to a class for thirty minutes about their career path – even if it has not been particularly successful. Children will gain as much hearing about a career failure as listening to someone who has really made it successfully. Again though, make sure they know what to expect before facing the children. The only time this backfired for me was when I invited in a successful business man who proceeded to tell the whole class that they really didn’t need to work hard in school because he hadn’t and still did fine. Not really the message I wanted to get across!

Encouraging good links with local business will pay back in spades when you are asked to organise work experience – and that’s my next blog topic.

Blog post by Lynda Dixon, Director of Enterprise Gran @e_gran

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NCW2014 Newsletter - Earn whilst you learn with Nestlé

Earn whilst your learn with Nestlé

This is a rare opportunity to graduate whilst earning a salary in a worldwide business, with no debt. Along the way you will gain valuable employment experience and skills leading to fantastic career opportunities.

Of course you’ve heard of our famous Smarties brand… but did you know that we're also the same people who bring you Nescafé, Shredded Wheat, Buxton Mineral Water, Rowntree's Fruit Pastilles, After-Eights, Felix and Bakers pet food? Or that we’re pushing back the boundaries of international health and nutrition with cutting-edge research?

The Nestlé Academy Fast Start programme combines study for a BA (Hons) degree in Professional Business Practice with work-based learning in our commercial functions.

The intensive three year programme will involve placements in Sales, Marketing, Supply Chain and HR for the first two years, interspersed with blocks of study at Sheffield Hallam University. In the final year you will specialise into a specific function based on your strengths, preferences and business requirements. The scheme is aimed at creating well rounded professionals with cross-functional exposure from an early stage, developing strong business acumen.

You’ll need to have completed your A levels or equivalent within the last two years, with 300 UCAS points from three A2 Levels or equivalent (minimum BBB) excluding General Studies or A2 re-sits. You must have 5 GCSEs including Maths and English, of minimum grade A* to C. Work experience, although preferable, is not essential. So long as we can see your potential, you won’t need to demonstrate specific competencies at this stage. We’ll make sure that you are always given the freedom to move around in a culture of brilliant people pulling together to create brilliant teams.

Explore new horizons in the world’s leading nutrition, health and wellness company.

Nestlé is working with Jobmi, the employability and recruitment platform for early careers. Join Jobmi at www.jobmi.com for these and other opportunities.

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LifeSkills NCW2014 - Wednesday 5th March

The LifeSkills National Careers Week Digital Guide is out now!

The LifeSkills National Careers Week Digital Guide has now been published. Featuring articles by O2, Sky, LifeSkills, Virgin Media, NHS Careers and much more. To view, click here LifeSkills National Careers Week Digital Guide.

Did you know that Issuu has an app where you can view our Digital Guide on your Android smartphone/tablet? Click here to download the app.

Bring LifeSkills National Careers Week to your school

LifeSkills, created with Barclays, is proud to sponsor National Careers Week (NCW). With our aim to improve young people's employability skills and their focus on careers, we make the perfect partnership.

Calling all teachers - make the most of LifeSkills National Careers Week and help your students kick-start their careers. Access our free LifeSkills resources, book a workshop or browse available work experience placements in your area.

Find out more about Work Experience

Sign up to LifeSkills

Win work experience with a football journalist at a Barclays Premier League fixture during the 2013/14 season. Click the link to enter and find out more www.footballwriters.co.uk/features/barclays-aspiring-journalist

New resources on our website!

We have lots of new resources on our new look website to help you support your involvement with LifeSkills National Careers Week 2014.

17 Regional Ambassadors sharing their campaigns for NCW 2014

A Careers Zone with even more employer opportunities on Future Jobs

The NEW official NCW Digital Guide

Download our official NCW Posters

Download our NCW Tips Sheet

Download 5 Employability Cards

Watch our 25 Job Profile Films

Watch our NCW Promo Film & Advice Tips

What to do next?

If you haven't already - sign-up here. It takes 2 minutes and then we can shout about you and your establishment.

Please share this with colleagues, friends, PTAs and employer stakeholders wherever you are. The more we work together the better the future for our youth.

Follow us on our social media networks to keep up to date with the latest news and resources.

 Careers Zone's Latest Clients

To help provide information on a wide array of career offerings and pathways we have some great new supporters of LifeSkills National Careers Week 2014:

LifeSkills

GSK

Creative Pioneers

Taste Success

The Institute of the Motor Industry

Virgin Media

GoThinkBig (O2)

Freshfields

Careers in Racing

Careers that Move

Sky

Hospitality Guild

NHS Careers

BDO

Gap Medics

ACCA

HSS Hire

Milkround

EY

Skills for Care

Nestle

Win work experience with a football journalist at a Barclays Premier League fixture during the 2013/14 season. Click the link to enter and find out more www.footballwriters.co.uk/features/barclays-aspiring-journalist

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Day 2 - Getting Started by Regional Ambassador Lynda Dixon

Day Two – Getting Started

‘Careers and Progression’ – it is a huge area to take responsibility for. This may include whole class teaching, one-to-one guidance, preparation for interviews and CV writing, work experience, business links and a whole raft of other tasks. You will need to keep up-to-date records and encourage the students to do the same. You will need to maintain a library of resources, University prospectuses and local college courses. You will certainly need information about current and predicted job market trends.

If you are in the Secondary sector you will need to establish good relationships with your post-16 and post-18 local providers. If you are in the Primary sector you will need to start them young, thinking about their futures, providing them with people from the world of business to talk to and ensure that they know the options available to them.

These things take time to set up and the best way is to take small steps and build from one year to the next. Here are some ideas for getting started:

Careers noticeboards

One of the best ways I have found of sparking interest in children of all ages is to have a careers noticeboard in school. For Primary, this might be one board in a prominent place, changed regularly with interesting information about a variety of jobs or training opportunities. In Secondary, I like to see a careers board in each subject area, along the lines of ‘What careers can I do with Science?’  I found Heads of Department in Secondary quite enthusiastic about this as it promoted their subject in a meaningful way. It also kept my mail down as when I got flyers or booklets related to a particular type of training or subject, I passed them on to the relevant Heads of Department!

Careers Library

In most cases, a Careers Library can be built up within the school library. One of the best ways to access information these days is via the computer. This also keeps the quantity of paper down in your school. Clearly I am not talking about children randomly finding advice but teachers providing a list of recommended sites to use.

Here are some suggestions of sites which teachers might find helpful:

http://www.careersbox.co.uk

http://www.skillsexplorer.com

http://www.realgame.co.uk

http://www.careersoft.co.uk/Products/Job_Explorer_Database/?campaign=201401a

http://www.cascaid.co.uk

http://www.fasttomato.com

http://icould.com/resources/

http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/advice-and-guidance/a-free-primary-careers-education-resource/

Student Involvement

Another valuable tool for creating a Careers ethos in school is to encourage the students to build their own portfolio. This could include their hopes and dreams, their strengths and weaknesses, some target setting as well as snippets and print outs of jobs that interest them now which may exist in the future. Help them to gain self-awareness, to know what their strengths and weaknesses are, so that they can create a path that will get them close to their dream but reflect reality. What I mean by this is, it is fine to want to be a footballer, but they need to be aware of the shortfalls – the need for talent as well as hard work, the length of time that the career is viable, the need for a Plan B in case it doesn't work out.

Despite there being some great resources out there for both online and hard copies of portfolios (which cost lots of money) I found it just as easy to ask them to make a Powerpoint or keep a scrapbook. These methods enabled easy updating and helped them look back to see what progress they had made. Some of my students were immensely proud of their files and took them to College interviews to discuss with the interviewer.

I hope that these ideas could work no matter which phase you teach in. In my opinion, there should be a constant drip feed of careers references during lessons and activities. I would advise an extra box on lesson plans which might indicate where an opportunity to mention careers could arise. For example, during a Mathematics lesson on area, the teacher might ask which jobs rely on the ability to calculate area. Hopefully the children will then come up with several suggestions such as carpet fitter, tiler, roofer etc.  The benefits are two-fold as the child begins to make the link between ‘stuff’ done in school and the real world, whilst the teacher shows that the subject is important in the world of work and beyond.

One of the most important and valuable aspect of careers education (yet one of the biggest minefields if it goes wrong) is business links. That will be the subject of tomorrow’s blog.

Blog post by Lynda Dixon, Director of Enterprise Gran @e_gran

[nationalcareersweek]

NCW2014 Newsletter - A rewarding career with ACCA

A rewarding career with ACCA

School leavers and graduates choosing a career in accountancy will be entering a world of unlimited possibilities. Helping them chose ACCA will be their passport to future employment and success with top employers around the globe.

Find out more about jobs in accountancy and get career advice by visiting www.accacareers.com

Getting a job

Getting students ready for that all-important first job interview is easy with ACCA. Our ACCA podcasts and extensive online resources provide students with everything from tips on writing a perfect CV, to maximising a LinkedIn profile and help with interview preparation. The ACCA Qualification and expert career advice will ensure students stand out from the crowd, demonstrating the business skills, problem-solving ability and commercial awareness of the marketplace that employers really want.

Help students reach their dream job with ACCA podcasts

Obtaining the right information for an accountancy career

At ACCA we’ve created a schools resource pack especially for career advisors like you. It’s designed to save you time by bringing together in one place all the information you need to know about accountancy and the career options available to young people. You’ll find information about the different routes available to students to become qualified accountants and the different qualifications they can achieve on their way to becoming ACCA members. It will also provide details of the salary levels students can expect to earn by having the ACCA letters next to their name. Our pack is the starting point to helping your students find rewarding employment opportunities in any sector, anywhere in the world.

Studying with ACCA at the right level

ACCA offers students the opportunity to kick-start their accountancy career at the right level for them based on their previous qualifications. Our Foundation level qualifications are perfect for students who wish to start out in accounting and finance straight after school and then progress onto the ACCA Qualification. Students who have obtained a university degree in any subject can study directly towards the ACCA Qualification.

Find out more about the multiple entry routes available for ACCA

Gaining multi-sector knowledge and high salaries

The ACCA Qualification offers a rewarding career in all sectors, including the public practice sector (e.g. Deloitte), the financial services sector (e.g. HSBC), the public sector (e.g. the NHS) or the corporate sector (e.g. British Airways). Students are able to earn a competitive salary which can rise quickly depending on their progress; in the public sector their salaries could double once they are qualified.

Visit our website to learn more about a rewarding career with ACCA

ACCA Fast Facts

A truly global body of professional accountants ACCA supports 162,000 members and 426,000 students in 173 countries

We are unique ACCA is the only professional body offering Option papers allowing students to steer their career in the direction they want

Employers recommend us 89% of employers are likely to recommend ACCA

We value diversity We are proud to continually have the highest percentage of female members (45%) year-on-year compared to other professional accountancy bodies.

Students! Follow your dreams with ACCA

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[nationalcareersweek]

LifeSkills NCW2014 Tuesday 4th March - Future Jobs

The LifeSkills National Careers Week Digital Guide is out now!

The LifeSkills National Careers Week Digital Guide has now been published. Featuring articles by O2, Sky, LifeSkills, Virgin Media, NHS Careers and much more. To view, all you have to do is follow the link through to Issuu and read the guide.

Read the LifeSkills National Careers Week Digital Guide here

At Sky, we've been making entertainment better for 25 years

And delivering Sky's mix of TV that people love, pioneering technology, award-winning service and superfast broadband is a genuine team effort. Across our business, whether in front of the camera or behind the scenes, we're always looking for new ways to make things better for our customers. And it takes a team of talented, ambitious and dedicated people working together to make it happen.

Sky Academy inspires young people, supports emerging talent and helps build skills and self-belief for future generations. It brings together a range of opportunities Sky delivers for young people, including our Starting Out opportunities.

Our 'Starting Out' team work across the whole of Sky to find opportunities for young people like you to join us. Whether that's on a two week work experience placement or a permanent contract as an Apprentice we're keen for you to help us steer the future of Sky.

We have a range of opportunities available including work experience, placements, apprenticeships and graduates - full details are available are on our website.

New resources on our website!

We have lots of new resources coming your way to support you in your efforts to provide really good quality careers guidance and activities in March 2014. These will include:

17 Regional Ambassadors sharing their campaigns for NCW 2014

A Careers Zone with even more employer opportunities on Future Jobs

The NEW official NCW Digital Guide/a>

Download our official NCW Posters

Download our NCW Tips Sheet

Download 5 Employability Cards

Watch the 25 Job Profile Films

Watch the NCW Promo Film & Advice Tips

What to do next?

If you haven't already - sign-up here. It takes 2 minutes and then we can shout about you and your establishment.

Please share this with colleagues, friends, PTAs and employer stakeholders wherever you are. The more we work together the better the future for our youth.

Follow us on our social media networks to keep up to date with the latest news and resources.

Careers Zone's Latest Clients

To help provide information on a wide array of career offerings and pathways we have some great new supporters of LifeSkills National Careers Week 2014:

LifeSkills

GSK

Creative Pioneers

Taste Success

The Institute of the Motor Industry

Virgin Media

GoThinkBig (O2)

Freshfields

Careers in Racing

Careers that Move

Sky

Hospitality Guild

NHS Careers

BDO

Gap Medics

ACCA

HSS Hire

Milkround

EY

Skills for Care

Nestle

Win work experience with a football journalist at a Barclays Premier League fixture during the 2013/14 season. Click the link to enter and find out more www.footballwriters.co.uk/features/barclays-aspiring-journalist

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[nationalcareersweek]

Day 1 - Introduction by Regional Ambassador; Lynda Dixon

Day One - Introduction

Looking back, I consider myself very lucky to have taught through an era and in a school where Careers Education was valued, supported with funding and timetabled as a discrete subject. I also had access to outside agencies who provided, at reasonable cost, support with business links and impartial advice. We had a good work experience programme, events targeted at each age group, mock interviews, one-to-one interviews and workplace visits. How times have changed. 

If you have now been tasked with guiding young people with regard to careers, you may feel alone and confused. You may be left to just ‘get on with it’ and feel that you have neither the expertise nor the knowledge to do the job well. My daily blog posts during National Careers Week 2014 will hopefully give you some ideas and make the role feel more comfortable. Let me add at this point – I am not some amazing Careers Education guru – just a classroom teacher who was thrown in at the deep end and had to learn to swim very quickly.

My own experience was in secondary schools. I loved careers teaching and make no bones about the fact that it was the total freedom to do what I liked that made it so appealing. One morning, I gave Year 11 some Plasticene to play with. It was just meant to be a starter activity. It was a gamble, as they could have seen it as infantile and thrown it at me. But they didn’t. In fact, they loved it and begged me to let them keep ‘playing’. They used the Plasticene to create a picture or a model of what they hoped for in their future. It was hugely successful and we photographed their creations for a display (well, we photographed all except the one created by the boy whose career aspiration was ‘to be a porn star’).  I loved careers because there were no tests to groom for, no rigid plans to stick to and very little interference from outside the classroom. That’s not to say I could forget accountability, of course. At the end of each year, I had to provide information for the school SEF, showing that progression was good and that the numbers of NEETs were falling. I’m pleased to say that during my tenure, both of these improved year on year.

I did have lesson plans, but if someone asked a good and relevant question during the lesson, it was fine to go off track and pursue that topic. After all, the important thing was that students wanted to know more and it would be very wrong to plod on regardless with the planned lesson at that point. The unexpected nature of these lessons was what thrilled me most and kept me going in what was a highly challenging role.

Careers teaching is rather different now, sometimes being covered by class tutors with no real experience other than their own career history. I have known many teachers who groaned as they saw their new timetable and realised that they would be teaching careers. It might be bundled into Personal and Social Education or be hidden away in some other subject or even be the responsibility of every subject area. It may not even be there at all.

So, where are we now? This article from The Guardian is rather useful in summing up and highlighting the changes that have taken place in recent years:

http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2013/mar/04/career-education-guidance-schools

Without that contact, guidance, information and impartiality, how can young people possibly make the best choices for their future? Who will give them the advice they need? Parents? Friends? Naturally I am biased and believe that they really need the right person to turn to for advice and guidance with their careers questions.

If you have been charged with this duty and feel a little lost, I hope that my experience will help you this week and make you feel some of the excitement that Careers teaching can bring to yourself and those who rely on you for guidance. Tomorrow’s blog will look at getting started.

Blog post by Lynda Dixon, Regional Ambassador of NCW2014 & Director of Enterprise Gran @e_gran

[nationalcareersweek]

NCW2014 Monday 3rd March - HSS Hire Newsletter

There's more to hire than you might think: Careers at HSS Hire

HSS Hire are an award-winning supplier of tools, equipment and hire related services that employ over 2,500 colleagues throughout the UK.

It really is the people that make our company great and, as we continue to grow, we're looking for even more great people to join our team and help us keep delivering an unrivaled hire experience for our customers.

In return, we provide a positive, inclusive and supportive working environment as well as a competitive salary and excellent company benefits. And because we're committed to helping colleagues achieve their potential, we've built an industry-leading Training Academy and provide on-going learning and development to support your career progression.

We also offer a range of apprenticeships that cover many different skills so whether you have an interest in the challenges of engineering or a real passion for customer service and sales, we have career paths available within HSS Hire. You can find out more at www.hsscareers.co.uk.

But don't take our word for it; here's what our current apprentices have to say about their experiences so far:

Molly, Call Centre Apprentice

What does your day to day role involve? I work on the customer care team and so I advise customers on how to use LiveHire. This I where our customers can set up accounts so they are able to view their invoices and also the equipment that they have on hire.

I also deal with numerous customer queries on a daily basis and liaise with branches regularly.

What aspect of your job do you enjoy the most? Turning around any customer issues or problems into a positive. I find this an extremely rewarding aspect of the role as it is always varied.

What have you learned since working here? I have learned so much in the different departments that I have been involved in since starting my apprenticeship with HSS. Overall, I have learned to be confident whilst dealing with the different daily tasks.

What has been your biggest challenge so far? This is my first full time role since leaving education so adapting to a work environment was probably the biggest challenge for me. However, I have quickly adapted and really enjoy the variety that the apprenticeship offers!

Lexi - Apprentice Fitter, Solihull

What does your day to day role involve? My day to day role involves learning how to repair a number of machines. In the morning my apprentice mentor provides me with a list of tasks in the morning which usually consists of six different things to achieve that day. I am also involved in the test and run side of the role and I also spend time in college working towards qualifications.

What aspects of your job do you enjoy the most? I enjoy continually learning with new equipment and I particularly enjoy working with petrol engines. I get great satisfaction from the task of taking a piece of machinery apart, repairing it and then being responsible for repairing a piece of equipment.

What training have you received whilst in the role? I have gained training in numerous areas, these involve - electrics, power steering, engines, hydraulics and brakes.

What has been your biggest challenge so far? Probably adapting to learning so much every day and being in a different learning environment to what I am used to!

www.hss.com www.hsscareers.co.uk 

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[nationalcareersweek]

LifeSkills NCW2014 Monday 3rd March - Digital Skills

LifeSkills NCW2014 Mon 3rd March - Digital Skills

The LifeSkills National Careers Week Digital Guide is out now!

The LifeSkills National Careers Week Digital Guide has now been published. Featuring articles by O2, Sky, LifeSkills, Virgin Media, NHS Careers and much more. To view, all you have to do is follow the link through to Issuu and read the guide.

Read the LifeSkills National Careers Week Digital Guide

Kick start your career with GoThinkBig!

O2 and Bauer Media have joined forces to bring you an online hub for careers advice and work experience opportunities, better known as GoThinkBig. Our mission is to share useful tools to kick start your career, while lifting the lid on jobs you may not have considered.

We have thousands of exclusive jobs, internships, work experiences and skills days from O2, Bauer and our 35 partners (such as, Channel 4, Reed Smith and Jamie Oliver's Fifteen) available to you. We want to shine a light on careers and businesses that celebrate creativity, innovation, the digital economy and contemporary culture and invest in the transformative ability of young people.

Join us at gothinkbig.co.uk

New resources on our website!

We have lots of new resources coming your way to support you in your efforts to provide really good quality careers guidance and activities in March 2014. These will include:

17 Regional Ambassadors sharing their campaigns for NCW 2014

A Careers Zone with even more employer opportunities on Future Jobs

The NEW official NCW Digital Guide

Download our official NCW Posters

Download our NCW Tips Sheet

Download 5 Employability Cards

Watch the 25 Job Profile Films 

What to do next?

Sign up here. It takes 2 minutes and then we can shout about you and your establishment.

Please share this with colleagues, friends, PTAs and employer stakeholders wherever you are. The more we work together the better the future for our youth.

Follow us on our social media networks to keep up to date with the latest news and resources.

Careers Zone's Latest Clients

To help provide information on a wide array of career offerings and pathways we have some great new supporters of LifeSkills National Careers Week 2014:

LifeSkills

GSK

Creative Pioneers

Taste Success

The Institute of the Motor Industry

Virgin Media

GoThinkBig (O2)

Freshfields

Careers in Racing

Careers that Move

Sky

Hospitality Guild

NHS Careers

BDO

Gap Medics

ACCA

HSS Hire

Milkround

EY

Skills for Care

Nestle

Why register for NCW2014?

Register to be involved with one of the most exciting weeks in 2014. Be part of something great and spread the word of your involvement with NCW2014.

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