OASTLERS SCHOOL
Safe, Secure and Successful
Intent
Our offer is a robust careers and employment strategy that seeks to link the aspirations and ambitions of our learners with the opportunities within the local labour market. Our school focuses on relationships, which nurture confidence and self-esteem within our young people. Business works on the same principle developing partnerships through relationships, so to us it is logical that our strategy engages employers by understanding their needs whilst also building their understanding of our specialist provision. We listen to the local employers across a range of sectors, co-designing placement and employment opportunities, making reasonable adjustments in the workplace where required to support our learners and give the best chance of sustained outcomes.
Our model has at its core the Gatsby Benchmarks, placing individual learners at the heart of their own transition process, either into further education or employment; we ensure each receives a wide range of opportunities as they progress through school. Learners are supported to develop their decision-making and self-advocacy skills by engagement within the curriculum, professional careers advice, vocational opportunities and links to employers and their places of work.
Our curriculum offer includes discrete learning activities that build on celebration events and clubs that are at the heart of our community. Careers is not marginalised within our school, it is integral, embedding whole school events building on the aspirations of our learners within their journey though the school. Our employability training is equally innovative, as we work with industry role models to embed interview and CV training, developing problem solving, persistence and the can do attitudes that employers tell us they want. Our learners will need to be match fit for employment, they need to know what the world of work expects and they will have to believe they have the skills to be successful when they leave our school. Our offer ensures they have every chance of success.
Implementation
By building partnerships with employers’ we have started to create opportunities that support traineeship and apprenticeship programmes with the aim of creating sustainable employment outcomes for our learners. Our existing relationships with work based learning providers are key to ensuring transitions from education to employment, with both learner and employer expectations aligned.
The school’s careers plan brings together a range of stakeholders from the outset engaging with parents and carers. We aim to maximise opportunities by ensuring events include careers, as well as publishing our programme across a number of media outlets.
Our careers programmes will be innovative and unique, we will develop our own branded offers that raise the profile of our school and seek to celebrate the partnerships we build with employers and other key stakeholder. As part of our Growth Sector analysis, we will target employers within a number of sectors including Engineering, Advanced Manufacturing and Digital to widen links and opportunities still further.
Implementation will align with the Gatsby Benchmarks to include a number of key success criteria including:
Impact
The impact of our careers model will be that no learner leaves school without a clear plan and the support structures to continue their journey within education or sustainable employment. Each outcome will be bespoke, targeted and reflective of need. We will be a significant force for good within the life chances of these young people, where necessary breaking generational worklessness and providing hope where previously there was none. We will bring together partnerships across education and employment, structured and co-ordinated to ensure each learner has a positive outcome eliminating the threat of a NEET outcome. We will continue to work with local agencies to address key themes such as benefits dependency, money management and social mobility.
