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Careers

Welcome to The Chalfonts Community College Careers & Employability section. The delivery of Careers is a whole school responsibility to ensure that our students gain an understanding of themselves, their abilities, interests, what motivates them and how they individually learn. The College is committed to providing impartial, independent careers education, information, advice and guidance. (CEIAG). All staff at The College are dedicated to improving students’ awareness of opportunities, raising their aspirations and working with them to ensure they achieve their full potential.

Careers Leader: Miss Kirsty Vinten
KVinten@chalfonts.org

The School Career Strategic Objectives are as follows:

  • All pupils, from Year 7 to Year 13, are offered high-quality, professional Careers education, information, advice and guidance, to develop personal, social and employability skills.
  • The 8 Gatsby Benchmarks will be at the core of our Careers education and regularly monitored, to ensure the information, advice and guidance is applied across all year groups.
  • To ensure the Careers programme is fully embedded into the academic curriculum, by raising awareness and providing the correct tools with which to facilitate Careers interventions into classes.
  • Measuring the impact through the tracking and monitoring of student development, and their understanding of the ever-changing ‘world of work’.
  • Raising aspirations and ensuring students are motivated to achieve their best results possible, enabling them to realise their goals.

There are a variety of routes that students can take to progress towards careers of their choice, and we are keen to ensure students have information about all the options available to them.

The Chalfonts Community College, has a full programme of careers and employability activities for our students from Year 7, up to Year 13. Click here to see the Visual Careers Programme. Some of these activities include; 1:1 appointments with a Careers Advisor, a ‘World of Work’ programme delivered by Sixth Formers to Years 7 and 8, support with GCSE options for Year 9s, visits to Universities for Year 9s, a week of work experience for Year 10s, and an employability skills day for Year 11s.

We also provide our Sixth Form students with support around UCAS applications, degree apprenticeships, attending assessment centres, interview skills, CV building and using LinkedIn. Although qualifications remain extremely important, they are no longer the only consideration when applying for roles. Employability skills are also an essential part of an application.

GATSBY CAREER BENCHMARKS

In 2013, Gatsby commissioned Sir John Holman to set out what career guidance in England would be like if it were good by international standards, resulting in the Good Career Guidance report. The eight benchmarks set out in the report serve as a framework for improvement in careers provision and have been adopted as part of the Government's Careers Strategy and statutory guidance for schools and colleges. Everything we deliver in school, links to the 8 Gatsby Benchmark framework and this guidance helps to ensure we are covering all aspects of Careers delivering across the programme (Click here to see careers programme relating to Gatsby Benchmarks):

  1. A stable careers programme: Every school and college should have an embedded programme of career education and guidance that is known and understood by students, parents, teachers, governors and employers.
  2. Learning from career and labour market information: Every student, and their parents, should have access to good quality information about future study options and labour market opportunities.
  3. Addressing the needs of each student: Students have different career guidance needs at different stages. Opportunities for advice and support need to be tailored to the needs of each student.
  4. Linking curriculum learning to careers: All teachers should link curriculum learning with careers. STEM subject teachers should highlight the relevance of STEM subjects for a wide range of future career paths.
  5. Encounters with employers and employees: Every student should have multiple opportunities to learn from employers about work, employment and the skills that are valued in the workplace. This can be through a range of enrichment activities including visiting speakers, mentoring and enterprise schemes.
  6. Experience of workplaces: Every student should have first-hand experiences of the workplace through work visits, work shadowing and/or work experience to help their exploration of career opportunities, and expand their networks.
  7. Encounters with further and higher education: All students should understand the full range of learning opportunities that are available to them. This includes both academic and vocational routes and learning in schools, colleges, universities and in the workplace.
  8. Personal guidance: Every student should have opportunities for guidance interviews with a careers adviser, who could be internal (a member of school staff) or external, provided they are trained to an appropriate level.

Enterprise Advisors working with The Chalfonts Community College

It is widely accepted that inspiring and preparing students for their next career steps and world of work is vital. To that end, Chalfonts Community College is a valued member of the Buckinghamshire Skills Hub - https://bucksskillshub.org/. Membership of the Skills Hub entitles CCC to receive support from an Enterprise Coordinator, who helps to establish links between the school and outside organisations, including businesses which are both local and national, small and large, and further, higher and independent training providers, such as colleges and universities.

In addition, membership of the hub brings with it the benefit of one or two Enterprise Advisers, who are business volunteers linked to CCC, to provide both hands on activities such as mock interviews and CV writing practice, but also to help guide the school at a strategic level with regard to CCC’s approach to Careers Education for our students.

CCC plays an active part in the Bucks Skills Hub, by participating in and sharing ideas with the other member schools in the Skills Hub, for the benefit of all students within Buckinghamshire. The Skills Hub runs regular collaborative events to share best practice, and also hosts county wide careers events, such as the Bucks Skills Show - https://bucksskillshub.org/news/careers-inspiration-for-4-500-people-at-bucks-skills-show.

Our Alumni

We are very proud of what our students go on to achieve once they have left The Chalfonts Community College. We currently have over 1300 students who have accessed our Alumni on LinkedIn. If you would like to join, you will need to create an account and ensure that your profile states that you studied at THE CHALFONTS COMMUNITY COLLEGE (select this option with the arrow, rather than typing it in). This will then show the alumni button on The Chalfonts Community College page.

We recently asked a number of our student alumni to attend a Careers Fair for our year 11s and it was really successful. It was amazing to see our ex-students representing a variety of professions and organisations.

Parental/Employer Engagement

We have some extremely supportive parents who give up time to support our students in school with careers activities, and we are always happy for more people to be involved. We also have some great relationships with many local businesses and very much appreciate their support.

If you are an employer looking to work with a school? Then we are looking for you! Many of our careers events require volunteers who are willing to get involved in a variety of activities, such as:

  • Presenting to students about various careers and experience/skills required for the roles; in assemblies and small groups
  • Conducting practice interviews
  • Observing groups of students at our mock assessment activities
  • Working with students on a one to one basis to help edit their draft CVs
  • Talking to students at our careers fairs
  • Helping to deliver lessons to show how the learning in specific subjects links directly to particular careers

If you would like to find out more, or would like to volunteer for an event please contact: Mrs Kirsty Vinten - KirstyVinten@chalfonts.org

Our Provider Access Policy (found under the policies section of our website) sets out the school’s arrangements for managing the access of providers to pupils at the school for the purpose of giving them information about the provider’s education or training offer.

 

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