CEIAG & Careers Leaders
Careers activities now statutory at KS2 How will KS3/4/5 respond?
Monday 23rd February 2015
Last week's publication of programmes of study for KS1&2 Citizenship, underline a trend I highlighted last year in this post The trend for CEIAG at primary level.
The new Citizenship programmes of study, which can be found here, sets out, under Knowledge, skills and understanding- Developing confidence and responsibility and making the most of their abilities. Pupils should be taught:... about the range of jobs carried out by people they know, and to understand how they can develop skills to make their own contribution in the future.
I find this very heartening, pupils leaving primary schools:-
1) With the idea that many jobs that they've never previously heard of exist, they just need the curiosity to find out.
2) That people all make a difference, be they roadsweepers or celebrity chefs, and should be valued.
3) Understanding that it is their responsibility to develop themselves and build employability skills
4) That they have a place in the future.
What worries me is that many secondary schools are still stuck in the 1990s or early noughties where careers was a 3 step process which was overseen by Connexions or a similar body external to the school. However, schools no longer have free access to that support and many are trying to continue in this fashion without the support.
1) Do an online matching tool in year 9 or so
2) Be left to research those careers on your own or with minimal help
3) Have a careers interview in year 10 or 11
The situation in secondary schools right now is critical for the UK's future economy, the amount of political coverage it has received in the media in recent weeks. I don't need to go into the events that have led us to the situation that we're in, they're well documented. However, reports and surveys have drawn us a bleak picture.
- The majority of schools are failing to provide good quality CEIAG
- Those schools who have jumped into the culture of providing employer engagement are not required to ensure that pupils have support in order to process that information effectively.
- There is no longer a culture of face-to-face careers guidance as a matter of course
- Young people are left with the job of navigating an ever changing world of opportunities in a world where even the Government agrees, support is patchy.
The mode of delivery that schools need to be be adopting now needs to be adapt to the new landscape of inspiration and career management skills. There needs to be a flow forward from KS2, developing skills and knowledge in a structured way with learning outcomes mapped accross the curriculum just as there is with literacy and numeracy.
Teach First is developing its training to include the role teachers play in developing career management skills, link here. So is it not time for schools to start to respond to the challange? I'd recommend:-
1)Develop their own career management skills pathway in tandem with their feeder schools and
2) Provide training for your staff, teaching and non teaching to help support their input into CEIAG, especially a better understanding of alternative routes to 14+ options.
3) Recognise & employ a specialist to oversee the curriculum wide development of CEIAG and support.
No, I can't see much money coming your way to do this but didn't most of us go into teaching to make a difference?
