CEIAG & Careers Leaders

Careers Leader in Fairyland - The devil is in the detail

Careers Leader in Fairyland - The devil is in the detail

Tuesday 17th July 2018

Last week I was at the Careers Education Leaders conference at ICeGS delivering a keynote on Gatsby Benchmark 4 - embedding careers across the curriculum. One of the key points I made is that the Compass Tool only asks for curriculum input from Maths, English, Science and PSHE. My viewpoint is that level of cross curricular input is very much the basic option and shouldn't be the level at which schools should settle.

It is perfectly possible for all subjects to have some implicit careers learning. For example, a case study, a talk, or simply a video showcasing how a skill the young people are learning is used in the working world.

Later on in the conference a Enterprise Coordinator clearly stated the expectation that the Enterprise Adviser would have contact only with the careers leader and not other staff who arranged careers input. This led me to thinking about perceptions of the role of the careers leader, it seems there are many. Whilst my perception is that the careers leader has a management role, their job is to ensure the whole thing runs on rails as the saying goes, but is it their job to micro manage every employer engagement and every HE interaction?

Teachers as Careers Leaders


In my experience careers leaders have (usually) just a couple of extra non contact periods, if any at all. They may or may not have administrative support to fulfil their role.
OR
The designated careers leader is a SLT member who has the role of careers leader on top of other responsibilities and is expected to manage the role in any of it's possible forms from full blown management of CEIAG and possibly a team including a careers adviser, an administrator and a work experience coordinator. to just fielding Baker Clause requests.

In short it depends on the schools interpretation of the role of a careers leader

The Careers Adviser as Careers Leader


Some schools have gone down the route of appointing their careers adviser as careers leader, this does have flexibility as depending on their hours and interviewing schedule they may have more time to juggle the demands of the role. However, given the need to have input into the teaching of careers in the curriculum there may well be the need to include a teacher in the team.

The Non Specialist Administrator as Careers Leader


Some schools have appointed admin assistants to the role, some with training and some without. Cheaper for the school without doubt it still leaves the school with the need to appoint a level 6 qualified careers adviser in order to achieve Gatsby benchmark 8 and a teacher to ensure the other benchmarks, especially 2 and 4 are covered adequately.

What does a careers leader do?

I'd suggest everyone looks at the CDI's job descriptions of a careers leader Here and consider how your school delivers the necessary resources or indeed how it can given the financial constraints.

Some questions to ask yourself


Senior Leadership Teams - have you taken account of the scope of the role before appointing?
New Careers Leaders - Have you been given the time and resources to deliver this role?
Governors - Have you been clear enough in holding your school to account in respect of delivering the requirements of the statutory duty for careers?