Careers Information, Advice and Guidance at Villiers High School

Villiers High School is committed to preparing students for future success in education, employment and training. Our comprehensive Careers programme uses the Gatsby Benchmarks & The Baker Clause to develop and implement our Careers provision and enable a range of education and training providers to regularly engage with all students across Year 7-13.

Within our Careers programme, all students receive unbiased and impartial information about potential next steps and high-quality careers guidance.

We aim to provide high quality, meaningful opportunities for students to encounter the world of work and teach students a range of employability skills to ensure they have a successful future in the workplace. 

Our vision for Careers supports our whole school ethos of nurturing students’ skills and talents to ensure that they are all able to engage positively with their future life choices.  In line with the School’s motto ‘For Life not school we learn’.

Careers Leadership at Villiers

Mrs G Nagi: Senior Assistant Headteacher, Whole School Careers Leader

As a school, all staff including Teachers, Tutors, Support Staff, Heads of Year, Heads of Department and Senior Leadership Team are committed to supporting the Careers programme. To ensure that students receive unbiased and impartial advice we work with the Ealing Connexions Service.

Ealing Connexions works to help all young people make progress and take part in appropriate education, employment and training by providing high quality careers, education, information, advice, guidance and support to use a range of more specialist services.

Ealing Connexions operates within Villiers High School.  Your Personal Adviser, Miss Shami Bahra, will offer you impartial information, advice, guidance and support to help you to make informed choices and decisions about your options in education, employment and training.  Should you want further information, Mrs Nagi Senior Assistant Headteacher is the careers line manager.

How you can support our Careers Programme

If you or a family member or friend are a business or employer, education or training provider and could support Villiers with our Careers programme (including Work Experience placements, lunchtime careers talks, networking opportunities and attending our Careers Conference in July 2024), please do contact us as we are always looking to expand our network of employers and education providers.

Careers Guidance in schools - Statutory Frameworks:

In December 2017, the Department for Education (DfE) published a new Careers Strategy for secondary schools followed by statutory guidance in January 2018. Schools must have an appointed Careers Leader and a Careers Information, Advice & Guidance (CIAG) Programme for each academic year. By September 2020 schools should have been meeting the Eight Gatsby Benchmarks:

1. A stable careers programme

2. Learning from career and labour market information

3. Addressing the needs of each pupil

4. Linking curriculum learning to careers

5. Encounters with employers and employees

6. Experiences of workplaces

7. Encounters with further and higher education

8. Personal guidance

Quality Assurance within our Careers provision:

In order to regularly evaluate our Careers provision, we complete a compass evaluation (arranged by The Careers & Enterprise Company) once per year, which provides information about how we are performing against the Gatsby Benchmarks.

Our most recent Compass evaluation in June 2023 showed that we are making excellent progress with meeting 100% of the Gatsby Benchmarks, which is well above national average.

The Baker Clause:

In January 2018, the DfE also introduced ‘The Baker Clause’ as an amendment to the Technical and Further Education Act 2017. The Baker Clause stipulates that schools must allow colleges and training providers access to every student in years 8- 13 to discuss non-academic routes that are available to them. It is expected that by doing so this will help address the UK’s productivity challenges and address skills shortages experienced across several sectors of the economy.

To ensure we are compliant with The Baker Clause, we have developed excellent links & partnerships with the following organisations & providers, who regularly run assemblies, talks, small group sessions & workshops for our students:

University of West London

Brunel

Kings College

Kingston University

St Mary’s University

West London College

Local colleges (Including Uxbridge College, Hammersmith and West London, Southall College, Richmond College)

Heathrow and BA

ASK Programme (Apprenticeship, Support & Knowledge)

Berkley Homes (A construction company currently involved in the major redevelopment of an area local to the school)

HS2 (A construction company involved in the construction of the rail networks local to the school)

Unifrog - an online Career platform for all Y7-13 students (this provides students with a variety of different pathways into an industry)

6^th Form Speaker Series – inspirational talks from employers and ex students

Annual Careers Conference

We are confident that our Careers provision is wide ranging, inclusive and diverse. Within our Pastoral and PSHCE Programmes, Wider learning offer, Curriculum and additional Careers IAG provisions, we feel that we are giving students the right support, knowledge and skills to be successful in their future at Villiers at beyond. As always, we are open to receiving feedback & suggestions for further ways to continue to develop & refine our Careers programme.

Contact information:

Mrs Gopali Nagi

gnagi@villiers.ealing.sch.uk

0208 867 9079

Ms Shami Bahra

sbahra@villiers.ealing.sch.uk

07903 161690

Villiers High School Provider Access Policy

Introduction

Villiers High School aims to provide excellent information, advice and guidance to its students,

enabling them to make the right progression choices at each stage of their education.

Villiers is committed to complying in full with its obligations in this area under Education Act and associated regulations as set out in the following DfE document:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/careers-guidance-provision-for-young-people-in-schools

This policy statement sets out the school’s arrangements for managing the access of providers to

pupils at Trust schools for the purpose of giving them information about the provider’s education or

training offer as required in Section 42B of the Education Act 1997.

Pupil Entitlement

All pupils in years 8-13 are entitled to:

• find out about technical education qualifications and apprenticeships opportunities, as part of a pastoral programme with specific IAG elements which provides information on the full range of education and training options available at each transition point;

• hear from a range of local providers about the opportunities they offer, including technical education and apprenticeships – through options events, assemblies and group discussions and taster events;

• understand how to make applications for the full range of academic and technical courses

Management of provider access requests Procedure

A provider wishing to request access should contact:

Mrs Gopali Nagi

Senior Assistant Headteacher

gnagi@villiers.ealing.sch.uk

0208 867 9079

Opportunities for access

A number of events, integrated into the school careers programme, will offer providers an opportunity to come into school to speak to pupils and/or their parents/carers:

Premises and facilities

The school will make the main hall, sports hall, classrooms or private meeting rooms available for discussions between the provider and students, as appropriate to the activity.

The school will also make available any IT facilities and other specialist equipment to support provider presentations.

This will all be discussed and agreed in advance of the visit with the contact listed above.

Providers are welcome to provide a copy of their prospectus or other relevant course literature at

the school where it will be made available to pupils through their HoY, the Library and Connexions.