Our careers programme

Students at Tuxford Academy have a planned programme of Careers Education, Information, Advice and Guidance (CEIAG), in accordance with the DFE careers guidance and inspiration in schools guidelines. The programme ensures all students have opportunities to recognise their own strengths and values and take responsibility for developing employability skills.

Parental support

Talking to your child about their career aspirations, understanding plans is an important step in helping them to establish a pathway which suits them. Sitting down for a simple question and answer session with your child can be a great way to do this, and revisiting their answers occasionally can help them to continue to shape their plans to suit their needs.

Careers Conversations: Student and Parent Q&A Prompts

Key contact

Our careers lead is Mrs Sue Johnson:

careers@tuxford-ac.org.uk

01777 870001

Policies

All related policies, including our Careers education, information, advice and guidance policy and our provider access policy can be found here.

Entitlement

All year 7 students will receive:

  • access to impartial careers advice
  • access to Unifrog

All year 8 students will receive:

  • support and advice in making decisions on GCSE options
  • access to impartial careers advice
  • access to Unifrog

All year 9 students will receive:

  • opportunities to have conversations with employers and working people
  • involvement in an options process to help make guided and informed decisions about the future
  • opportunities to visit a university
  • support and advice in making decisions on GCSE options
  • access to impartial careers advice
  • access to Unifrog

All year 10 students will receive:

  • opportunities to have conversations with employers and working people
  • opportunity to engage in a mock interview program
  • opportunities to visit a university
  • access to impartial careers advice
  • access to Unifrog

All year 11 students will receive:

  • receive a careers interview and complete a career action plan
  • opportunities to have conversations with employers and working people
  • guidance on producing a CV and covering letter
  • opportunity to visit careers fairs
  • opportunities to visit universities
  • access to impartial careers advice
  • access to Unifrog

Throughout their time at Tuxford, post 16 students are kept well informed of potential pathways into further education, employment or training opportunities.

Our full post 16 careers programme can be found here.

Unifrog

All of our students have free access to Unifrog, an online service which enables students to easily explore their interests, then find and successfully apply for their next best step after school; such as university, further education, or going straight into a career.

It offers students the opportunity to create a bespoke pathway for themselves and gives real-time advice on available courses, careers, salaries and more.

It is the only place where students can compare every university course, apprenticeship and FE course in the UK as well as university courses in 30 other countries across the world. This is alongside getting access to labour market information and advice on careers and subjects for all routes.

Helping students to record and evidence their key activities and competencies and prepare their CVs and personal statements alongside teacher reference, CEIAG interactions recording and destination tracking tools – all in line with the Gatsby Benchmarks.

If you would like your own login for Unifrog, to explore the platform for yourself, please get in touch with our careers lead.

The Gatsby Benchmarks

The Gatsby Benchmarks consist of eight guidelines that identify excellent careers guidance and which the government expects schools to work towards meeting. By doing so, schools can look to measure and improve their careers guidance. The benchmarks provide a very helpful framework for developing our careers programme at Tuxford Academy.

In summary, the benchmarks are as follows:

  1. a stable careers programme
  2. learning from career and labour market information
  3. addressing the needs of each student
  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

We aim to evaluate the effectiveness of our careers programme on a regular basis. One of the key methods that we use is the Compass programme developed by the Careers and Enterprise Company. The evaluation requires us to reflect on our practice using the Gatsby benchmarks.

Useful resources

Icould.com – Free and simple to use, icould.com features over 1000 videos of people talking about their careers – explaining their job role, career path, and how different factors have shaped their direction.

National Careers Service – Information, advice and guidance to help you make decisions on learning, training and work.

Careerpilot – Expert careers information and tools for 11-19 year olds, all in one place.

National Apprenticeship Service – Governement service to search for apprenticeships.

Informed Choices – A service to help you understand which subjects open up different degrees, particularly at Russell Group universities.

The Scholarship Hub – Search and apply for University scholarships, bursaries and grants.