Careers Information and Guidance at SJV.
At St John Vianney School we believe that every Child and Young Person needs high quality careers guidance to help them make informed decisions about their future. A critical aim of the School is to provide effective guidance and to support the learners of SJV into their next steps and ultimately into the World of Work. At St John Vianney School all Children and Young People are expected to have high aspirations and to take advantage of the opportunities made available to them.
All students at St John Vianney School will access a robust careers education programme that follows the Gatsby Benchmarks – a national standard of high quality Careers Information and Guidance.
The benchmarks are:
- A stable careers programme
- Learning from career and labour market information
- Addressing the needs of each pupil
- Linking curriculum learning to careers
- Encounters with employers and employees
- Experiences of workplaces
- Encounters with further and higher education
- Personal guidance
Connexions
The School uses the skills and experiences of Trafford’s Connexions Advisors from Key Stage 3 onwards to support every child in School. Connexion’s Advisors conduct one to one meetings with all our pupils from Year 9 onwards, to gain an insight in to their future aspirations. They also liaise with the families to offer support to them. Connexions are invited in to our learners’ EHCP reviews to further support learner outcomes and ambitions, signposting potential next steps and employment opportunities for our learners.
Supporting Transitions
As a school we have built up very strong links with our feeder colleges and these relationships enable us to holistically support our leavers, making their transition and future college placement a success. We maintain these connections with our leavers and have regular updates on our past students’ progress, whilst they are attending the college.
We also link closely with Colleges across Manchester and take cohorts of students to attend welcome and introductory sessions on Open Events; this allows the students to experience the college environment during phased transitions. We frequently facilitate meetings between ourselves, Connexions and the Colleges if requested by our parents/carers.
Work related learning opportunities
We work closely with a number of external partners to provide relevant and valuable work experience opportunities for the learners of SJV and we continue to develop relationships with those in the local community, who are able to offer these extremely important learning opportunities for our Children and Young People. We have a strong group of local employers in childcare, engineering, administration, retail, sport, animal care, hospitality and leisure industries who are able to support our students.
We aim to prepare all of our Children and Young People to make a positive contribution to their community, through long term sustainable volunteering opportunities. Every learner who attends Post 16 will access work experience, with support if necessary, and many learners will access their own independent weekly work placement, arranged through our community contacts, as evidenced in our Careers, Information and Guidance and Work Related Learning plans.
At KS3 we provide and extensive range of work related learning opportunities. These include visits to local supermarkets and other organisations, where learners can see the breadth of opportunities that may become available to them
At KS4 and 5 we use our partners at the Childrens’ Adventure Farm Trust (CAFT), at Greater Manchester Outdoor Learning, at local enterprise initiatives and bespoke organisations to help secure experiences of the world of work. KS4 pupils undertake additional work experience within the school setting, using our Admin, Catering and Estates teams to gain valuable experiences. We already have a number of pupils who have transferred successfully from school to work settings for part-time, full-time or apprenticeship opportunities. Our aim is build further upon these opportunities for every child.
