Our Careers Programme

At Ark Elvin Academy, it is central to our mission that pupils are ‘able to pursue careers they are passionate about, contribute to society and live happy, healthy and fulfilled lives.’ We are therefore passionate about careers education and value it as extremely important work. We help students develop the skills and knowledge needed for the fast-changing job market, and provide them with a exciting range of opportunities to engage with employers, further education providers and higher education institutions throughout their time at the Academy. With this, we give them the skills, confidence and knowledge to start building beautiful futures.

Our aim is to meet all the Gatsby Benchmarks for every child. This ensures that we are preparing our pupils as well as we possibly can for life beyond school. To meet these Gatsby Benchmarks, our Careers Programme strategic objectives currently are:

• To develop, monitor and review a culture of high aspirations through a fully embedded careers education, advice, information and guidance programme, mase up of a knowledge-rich curriculum and a programme of wider events and experiences
• To build a continuously increasing and relevant network of partners and providers who can engage pupils in developing their career pathways
• To systematically track, monitor and review engagement with the careers programme to ensure that every pupil accesses the full range of the entitlement during their time at the school, and that we evaluate the impact of the programme thoroughly.

Monitoring and evaluation

We know that the key to any successful programme lies within monitoring and evaluating, as this will enable us to continue pursuing opportunities where they are having impact, and improve elements of the programme where our students still need more support. We monitor and evaluate our programme in a number of ways:

• Pupil voice: Every year we ask students to complete the Careers and Enterprise Company's Future Skills Questionnaire. This enables us to prioritise particular areas of interest regarding careers and consider how improvements could be made to the programme. Additionally, following on from theme weeks or special events (such as our Universities Week or Futures Week) we send out student surveys regarding the usefulness of the sessions and to what extent students feel that their understanding of different careers and pathways has improved. This enables us to make further improvements in future years.
• Pupil Level Tracking: As we track what our pupils do each academic year individually, this allows us to identify groups of pupils who are not receiving as many opportunities for careers and university related experiences. It also allows us to see trends and patterns between attainment data, destinations and the experiences pupils in that year had.
• Learning Walks: We regularly monitor the teaching of careers and destinations content in PSHE and form time, so that we can understand the delivery of this, and provide feedback to faciltators and content creators
• Evaluation of the programme: Three times per year, we assess how many of the Gatsby Benchmarks we are meeting and identify strategic goals for us to work on to further improve our provision. We also undertake an annual Internal Leadership Review, using the Careers and Enterprise Company's model, to help us understand our strengths and areas for development and future work. 
• Destinations Data: We monitor destinations data each year, to ensure we understand what our pupils go on to do and whether the Information, Advice and Guidance they received during their time here has had an effect.

It is imperative that every child receives careers education, information and guidance that is relevant to them at their particular stage in life. Therefore, we have a fully comprehensive careers curriculum in place, covering all of the Gatsby benchmarks, to help ensure that our students feel supported and confident as they consider their future destinations and pathways. Our careers curriculum can be found below. 

At Ark Elvin Academy we have a Level 6 trained Careers Adviser, Kath Dunn, onsite at least one day a week. Her usual working day with us is Monday, and she can be found in the careers meeting room, which is room 205. 

All students will meet with Ms Dunn at least once in KS4 and at least once in KS5, to support with post-16 and post-18 transition. Additionally, all students in KS3 with an EHCP meet with Ms Dunn ahead of the Y9 GCSE options process. 

Ms Dunn also attends some of our Progress Review Days at the start of each term, and can meet with parents/carers and students on this day.

If any student would like to meet with the careers advisor, they can pop in and see her on a Monday lunchtime. If they cannot find her, or if any parents/carers would like to find out more information about this service, please reach out to the Assistant Principal, Ms Boam, who can advise as to a potential meeting time. 

If you are an employer or self-employed person, interested in working with us on the delivery of our Careers Programme, please email d.boam@arkelvinacademy.org or visit this link: Support Us