Careers and Destinations

 

At St Michael’s we aim to provide every opportunity for our pupils to flourish as a child of God; to grow in body, mind and spirit and experience ‘life in all its fullness’ and this is reflected in our comprehensive and effective careers programme.

We are proud of the depth and quality of experiences offered to our pupils across all years and feel it prepares our young people for success in the future, whether this be in higher education, training or employment.

Careers Education, Information, Advice and Guidance (CEIAG) at St Michael’s forms an essential aspect of every pupils’ personal education and future well-being. Within Living Education, all year groups are taught about different aspects of Careers. In Year 7 we start by trying to raise our pupils’ aspirations and to challenge career stereotypes, while also introducing pupils to Unifrog (a career development platform).

As our pupils take their options in Year 9, we focus the Careers unit of work in Living Education to choosing their options and picking out strengths, interests and aspirations.  In Years 9 – 11 they begin learning how to write personal statements, their online reputation and learning what and how to use the labour market information.

In addition to Living Education, in Year 10 pupils also study a Careers lesson once every 4 weeks, where local colleges and apprenticeship providers come in to school to teach our pupils about their different Post-16 pathway options, spotlighting A-Levels, apprenticeships, T-Levels and vocational courses. In line with the school’s legal duty under the ‘Baker Clause’ (2018) pupils are provided opportunities for encounters with a range of education and training providers for the purpose of informing them about approved technical education qualifications and apprenticeships.

The pupils are also provided taster sessions for subjects they have not yet studied, for example, Sociology, Psychology or Law, to give them insight into what the pursuit of these subjects might include. The feedback we get from our pupils in Year 10 about this programme is really positive.

Within the individual curriculum areas pupils are introduced to career pathways linked to the specific subject discipline, showcasing how and where that subject could lead them. We are continually developing our curriculum area content by embedding more career guidance.

The CEIAG provision outlined above aims to meet The Gatsby Benchmarks, which are a national framework containing eight guidelines that define the best careers provision in schools and colleges. The quality of St Michael’s CEIAG programme is reviewed and assessed annually against The Gatsby Benchmarks by The Careers and Enterprise Company Compass Tracker.

These are the eight Gatsby Benchmarks:

A stable careers programme	Learning from Career & Labour Market Information	Addressing the needs of each pupil	Linking curriculum learning to Careers
Encounters with employers & employees	Experience of workplaces	Encounters with further and higher education	Personal guidance

 

We are continually looking for ways to develop our CEIAG provision across the school making adaptations to address the needs of every pupil. These are the more recent adaptations and experiences we have introduced for our recent academic years. 

Contact Details

If you have any questions about careers, please contact:

Mrs S Wilk

swilk@saint-michaels.lancs.sch.uk

Parent/Carer Resources 

We have put a link to some websites/documents below which will allow you to understand different opportunities available to our pupils. 

• https://resources.careersandenterprise.co.uk/ - Works with schools, colleges and employers to help every young person find their best next step
• https://amazingapprenticeships.com/ - Amazing Apprenticeships is a leading organisation in the education sector
• https://successatschool.org/ - parent/carer advice for lots of different areas; employability skills, interview skills, applying for jobs etc

Links to local Colleges & Training Providers

Don’t forget that College Open Events are one of the best ways to get up to date and accurate information on specific courses and entry requirements which can change year on year. Please look on our Careers Moodle page and have a look at some of the virtual tours!

Click the images below to find their websites:

Colleges:

• Runshaw College 

• Cardinal Newman College 

• Myerscough College 

• Bolton College

• The Bolton Sixth Form

• Preston College 

• Blackburn College 

 

             

 

Apprenticeships:                                                                                                                           

• Training 2000                                                                                                                        
• The Apprentice Guide 
• The National Apprenticeship Website - www.gov.uk/apply-apprenticeship
• BAE Systems

    

 

 Destinations

Percentage of Pupils in Sustained Education, Employment or Training (SEET)
Year	National (All Pupils)	National (Other)	St Michael's (All Pupils)	St Michael's (Disadvantaged)
2018	94	96	99	100
2019	94	97	98	100
2020	94	96	98	100
2021	94	96	95	95
2022	93	96	96	96