Connect ED News

There has been a lot of Career Mark activity of late with assessment successes and significant developments of the award itself.

In the next issue we will bring you news about a number of our recent, Nottinghamshire Career Mark successes, but it is Career Mark’s profile as a national award that continues to be inspiring. This has been demonstrated recently by further successes across the country in Wiltshire and Hull, with more imminent!

The significant changes we have made to the Career Mark award reflect the national policy changes following the new the 2011 Education Act, which have seen:
- the end of Connexions
- careers education and work experience no longer being statutory and
- the provision of independent, impartial careers guidance becoming the responsibility of schools.  

You should have recently received statutory guidance from the DfE on your new responsibilities as a result of this new legislation. In turn, Career Mark has had to respond to the new legislation by making changes to the standards, assessment, the charging structure and the management and support arrangements.

Further details are being sent to schools, colleges and providers and will be available on the Career Mark website. Below is a snapshot of some of the main changes and improvements…

-The standards: changes for the Career Mark 6 standards are being kept to a minimum, plus performance indicators reflect the new legislative changes and some inconsistencies have been removed and so the standards should be more relevant and straightforward;

- Assessment: this is shortening from three to two years, with a single assessment process and single assessor, plus simpler and shorter re-assessments;

- Support: in addition to our expert consultants, there is a significant upgrade of the Career Mark website (new look web-site live, more new features to follow) and we will be introducing a member’s forum, a newsletter and members consultations;

- Charges: we are introducing anannual membership fee (entitling access to new support services), there will be a slight price increase for CM assessment, but a new, much simpler and cheaper revalidation process.

Further details and transition arrangements have been outlined in the letters to providers and on the Career mark website, but to finish, it’s also worth highlighting the positive reference to careers quality awards made by John Hayes (Minister for Further Education, Skills and Lifelong Learning) recently:

“I am pleased to welcome the establishment of the Quality in Careers Standard. The standard will provide national validation of the quality awards used by schools; colleges and work based learning providers to demonstrate they are offering strong support to young people through careers education, information, advice and guidance. This is a really good example of an initiative which will help providers to do their best for all their learners.”

The ‘Quality in Careers Standard’ is a standard which careers quality awards, such as Career Mark, must attain. We’re delighted that Career Mark is one of only 13 in the country to be registered. We hope that this and all the improvements outlined above show the value of Career Mark in these changing times.

Want to know more?

E-mail or call Gary Longden – Tel: 0115 960 1542

Whilst this month saw the end of the national Connexions brand for young people and many local guidance and employability services disappearing in other parts of the country, the City and County councils here are continuing to back this important work through Futures Nottingham and Nottinghamshire.

Futures is very proud of our ‘Connexions’ achievements over the past decade. Working in close partnership with schools and colleges and the City and County councils, we have helped thousands of local teenagers make the most of their lives and ‘aspire and progress’ successfully through education and training into meaningful employment and careers. Of particular note recently is our national reputation for being ‘best in class’ at tackling youth unemployment and keeping down the number of young people who find themselves not in education, employment or training, or ‘NEET’.

Futures continues to deliver a complete, all-age, employability advice service, including work experience and employability programmes, careers guidance or targeted support for young people in many schools and free careers advice to adults.

Further free, local support includes the What Next Fair and the online ‘career planner’, Passportfolio. We’re also generating many new apprenticeships through our ‘Futures Apprenticeship Agency’, giving 16-19 year olds the chance to develop practical skills, achieve nationally recognised qualifications and earn as they learn.

So, whilst the loss of Connexions funding does now mean that schools are responsible for buying careers guidance for their students - see the statutory guidance piece elsewhere in this newsletter – Futures still deliver an array of local support services and it’s clear that many schools are recognising the key role that experienced and skilled careers advice can play in engaging their students to look beyond school and improve their focus on results.

Futures Nottingham and Nottinghamshire is thriving and continuing to deliver an expanding range of services to young people, parents, adults and businesses in the city and county and help as many local people as possible into more positive futures.
- Find out more about Futures’ education services
More news to follow next month!

Many thanks to those schools and colleges who have taken advantage of ‘Parents Today’, our new, free careers and employability service for your parents and carers.

‘Parents Today’ was launched in March to provide an innovative way of enabling you to provide free support to parents and you can view our first edition here.

We also invite ideas from providers on what services we can include in ‘Parents Today’ and some of the suggestions we’ve received so far include providing a PDF version (we've done this now!) and information on internships, holiday work, ‘not getting the grades you’d expected’, work experience preparation, exams revision and support and student finance!
(all good suggestions and we’ll do our best!) 

There are more details of the ways you can use this service here on the Futures’ website or you can e-mail Sheron Hambly.

In just 3 months Passportfolio has quadrupled the number of users as students nationally take up the benefits of this online career planner. Recent statistics show wide use in areas like Bristol, North East Lincs, Leicester and London, in addition to known activity hotspots like the Thames Valley and the South West. The personal strengths quizzes, skills section and the webfolio (our online record of achievement or ePortfolio) are proving the most popular parts of site.

Building on the success of the options@18+ zone, we will soon be launching a new world of work section with up to date information about work and training options, interview tips and an employability skills quiz. This new employability module is closely integrated with Careersbox the national careers film library, a free careers resource showing real people doing real jobs. Young people will be able to search the database of hundreds of films about work with ease from their Passportfolio account. The world of work zone will also be linked into Skills Explorer, another free teaching resource helping students discover a range of careers and job opportunities for school leavers, apprentices and graduates.

Passportfolio is a free online careers planner which offers a CV builder, action planner as well as these other fantastic resources. Young people can set up an account today by going to www.passportfolio.com. For more information about the site or to ask about training and other support resources available to schools, colleges and providers please contact us at Passportfolio@futuresnn.co.uk .

The new career and work-related learning framework from ACEG can help schools plan integrated and effective employability programmes for their students and offers some direction for schools following the recent removal of statutory duties. The framework offers a consolidation of progression learning outcomes for students aged 7 to 19 and incorporates career education and work related learning.
You can download the framework from the CEGNET website.

Last month we had an enjoyable day at Kirkby College’s Ambitious in Ashfield event supported by Ashfield District Council. Over 100 Year 9 students glimpsed into the world of work through a series of workshops which included meeting employers, local labour market information and construction activities. The idea of the event was to help them think about employability skills and the types of opportunities available to them and the students really enjoyed their day.

We have recently delivered a series of very successful workshops in Broxtowe and Ashfield districts using Google Earth maps to show students in Years 8, 9 and 10 where the local job opportunities are. The ‘On the map’ activity really gets the students thinking about opportunities and skills and provides valuable information on looking for work in their local area. The ‘Careers Cloud’ activity gets students to use their creativity to develop their understanding of STEM jobs and the employability skills needed for those jobs.

Preparations for the What Next Fair continue with bookings for the school sessions rolling in and exhibitors taking up the invitation to attend. Since the initial schools invitation went out in February we’ve already received bookings from 12 schools for sessions for their students on Wednesday 10th October. Although that means we already have over 1100 students attending, there is still plenty of availability.

Don’t forget too that this year the fair is also open to Year 12 and 13 students during the day, as well as year 11s. We aim to have a range of exhibitors who will be able to support students who are exploring other ways of funding their post-18 education such as sponsored degrees, higher apprenticeships and ‘A’ level traineeships.

To book a session for your students, please email the What Next team on whatnext@futuresnn.co.uk or phone 0115 9601571.

The exhibitor invites were sent out in March and since then we’ve been busy taking bookings. You can check the exhibitors who have booked so far here on SortItOnline. If you would like to exhibit or advertise at the event, you can find out more at www.futuresnn.co.uk/whatnext