Abbey Gates recognises the significance of creating lifelong learners who are prepared to enter the global community. Through curriculum planning, children encounter a variety of careers and professionals from Foundation to Year 6.

Our children explore connections to careers and apply their learning to real-life contexts. Staff actively foster and promote high aspirations and ambitions for all our learners, supporting them to Aim High and Be Kind.

Our aims are to:

• To aspire children to think of the future, increasing aspiration for all
• To develop and encourage a sense of ambition towards a future career
• To understand the basic skills and attitudes needed to be successful in the world of work and provide experiences of meaningful interaction with the world of work.
• To provide high quality information from a wide variety of sources –curriculum lessons, RHSE lessons, specific career sessions and visitors from a variety of careers
• To challenge all forms of stereotype (by background, gender or diversity groups) and preconceptions.
• To develop self-evaluation skills and make plans for the future
• To understand employment-related vocabulary

Visits both within and outside the school premises are consistently developed to ensure that children, throughout their primary education, have access to a wide range of careers information and learn about the available options. This year, we aspire to engage with individuals who have pursued apprenticeships.

In Key Stage 2 (KS2), the primary focus of careers education, children delve into understanding gender inequalities and challenging gender stereotypes. This is achieved through classroom activities and interactions with visitors to the school, whenever feasible. Children also gain insight into different pathways into work and the array of options available to them. They learn that various roles and careers demand distinct types of training, and individuals in the same role may have arrived there through different routes. In KS2, children actively apply for classroom and whole-school roles, utilising an application form and seeking references to bolster their applications.

Where feasible, careers education is seamlessly integrated into other subjects and lessons. For instance, in online safety lessons, children explore their 'digital footprints,' establishing a link to their understanding of how the internet and online activities can impact their reputation and have consequences in the world of work.

We utilise the principles of the Gatsby Benchmarks. The objectives for the careers programme are as follows:

• helping students to understand the changing world of work
• facilitating meaningful encounters with employers for all students
• supporting positive transitions
• enabling students to develop the research skills to find out about opportunities
• helping students to develop the skills, attitudes, knowledge and qualities to make a successful transition into the world of work and next stage of education
• encouraging participation in continued learning, including further and higher education and apprenticeships
• supporting inclusion, challenging stereotyping and promoting equality of opportunity
• contributing to strategies for raising achievement, particularly by increasing motivation.

We teach to the objectives under the outcomes of:

1. Developing yourself through careers, employability and enterprise education –self-awareness, Self-determination, Self-improvement as a learner

2. Learning about careers and the world of work – Exploring careers and career development, investigating work and working life, understanding business and industry, investigating jobs and labour market information, valuing equality, diversity and inclusion, learning about safe working practices and environments

3. Developing your career management and employability skills – Making the most of careers information, advice and guidance, preparing for employability, showing initiative and enterprise, developing personal financial capability, identifying choices and opportunities, planning and deciding, handling applications and interviews, managing changes and transitions.

Clubs and Careers at Abbey Gates

At Abbey Gates, we go beyond our curriculum when planning and exploring links to careers. Our staff provide a range of clubs each term that are carefully planned to expose learners to careers.

Pupil Parliament – We are politicians!

ECO Council – We are environmentalists!

Choir - We are musicians!

Netball – We are athletes!

Art – We are artists !

Resources and Support

We continue to put together a range of resources and links to support staff, learners and families investigate diverse careers and to help raise aspirations.

Primary Futures - https://www.primaryfutures.org/

Education and Employers - https://www.educationandemployers.org/

Career Talks and Labour Market information - https://icould.com/

STEM Ambassadors Programme - https://www.stem.org.uk/stem-ambassadors

Careers and Education Research Finding

Education and Employers research ‘Starting Early: Building the foundations for success’ revealed:

• Children as young as five have ingrained stereotypical views about the jobs people do, based on their gender, ethnicity, and social background
• Most children’s career aspirations are based on family, friends, and the media, with less than 1% knowing about a job from someone visiting their school
• Aspirations are narrow and out-of-sync with labour market demands
• Career aspirations are surprisingly persistent over time, similar at age 17-18 as among primary school children. Aspirations ultimately only resolve in later harsh entries to the labour market, as supply adjusts to demand

We, therefore, have a duty to:

• help children see the relevance of learning and building positive attitudes towards school, particularly among the most disadvantaged
• provide children with access to role models who can inspire them and broaden their horizons, showing that their background does not need to determine their future
• ensure children do not rule out career options for themselves, simply because they do not realise the details and benefits of the full range of opportunities open to them

What can you do to support your child?

Please talk about the job that you do, where you go and what you had to do to get it. You might not have a salaried job so you could talk to your child about what you do during your day and why you do this. Life choices is also an important part of this so you could talk about decisions you have made in your lives to be where you are in your life today.

Do you have a passion for ensuring children are highly skilled and ready for their next steps? Do you think that preparing the children now for their future life choices is a good idea? Would you be willing to discuss your career or life choice with the children and linking this to our focus skills? If the answer to these questions is yes, we would love you to get in contact with your child's teacher and find out how you could help support the learning of life choices and careers related learning as well as areas of the wider school curriculum.