Careers Summary

At Notre Dame we believe that an outstanding provision of CEIAG is fundamental in guiding pupils to reach their potential, broaden horizons, and explore their own career aspirations. Our aim is to equip our pupils with the knowledge and ambition to leave school and move successfully into further education, employment, or training.

Schools have a statutory duty to provide careers education in Years 7-13. We must give pupils access to beneficial information, impartial advice, and meaningful guidance. Our strong belief is that outstanding careers guidance provision is the key to unlocking social mobility. Here at Notre Dame, we focus on equipping young adults with the skills required in a fast-changing labour market, exploring all the options available to them, and providing support to allow them to make the right choices to enable them to engage in their chosen future careers.

Our Careers programme offers many opportunities throughout the school year for all students.

Throughout the careers programme at Notre Dame, we facilitate encounters with employers in and out of school, track the successes of our alumni and allow them to share their first-hand experience, and we present opportunities to engage with further and higher education providers. This empowers our pupils with the knowledge and understanding required to take ownership of their pathways and make informed decisions. All staff contribute to careers education and guidance through their roles as tutors and subject teachers. Alongside this provision, our experienced Careers Advisor offers focused and tailored careers advice.

The programme we offer focuses on developing our pupils’ skills in three core areas:

• Self-development: our pupils can only be successful if they understand the development of their own character, skills and abilities.
• Career exploration: our pupils can only aspire to careers they know about - our challenge is to make that knowledge as wide-ranging as possible.
• Career management: our pupils need the basic skills necessary to take their first post-16 steps with confidence, secure in the knowledge that they have made the correct choices at this time and have the resilience to cope with what lies ahead.

For further information on our Careers Programme for 2021/2022 please see the link at the bottom of this page.

Assessment

Our Careers programme is reviewed annually and amended to meet the needs of our pupils, and we monitor our careers provision throughout the year. We use the Compass tool to measure the impact of the careers programme as part of this review. The next review will take place in July 2022. After our CEIAG events and PSHE lessons, we assess whether our students have achieved the aims and objectives of the event and the standard of provision.

Feedback on our CEIAG provision is welcomed from parents, students, staff and employers: please forward comments to careers@ndhs.org.uk

Further Information

We have pages devoted to the delivery of CEIAG in different year groups.

• Y7/8 Introduction to CEIAG
• Y9 KS4 GCSE Preferences Info and Online Form
• Y10 Intro to Post-16 Options
• Y11 Applying for Post 16 Courses
• 6th Form CEIAG

Careers bulletins, with up to date information, are emailed to all year 10 - year 13 students once a fortnight. The bulletin is also attached to the regular NDHS newsletter to parents and carers.

Year 11 Transition Support

If you are a year 11 leaver, whatever your plans are for next year, do have a look at our information about results days, apprenticeships, work experience and more: Year 11 Transition Support.

What they did next

Want to find out the sorts of career pathways former Notre Dame Students have had?  Check out our Former Student Career Pathways.  Do you know a former Notre Dame student who would like to share what they did next?  If so, ask them to contact our Careers Team (see below).

Making connections

We aim to engage with businesses and employers to help us inform and educate our pupils about the world of work and prepare them for the path ahead.

Throughout the year, we have several events and activities in which employers can engage with pupils.

If you would be interested in supporting our work, please get in contact with our Careers Coordinator via the school office or email Rachel Holden directly rholden@ndhs.org.uk. We would also like to welcome past pupils into our alumni and appreciate their participation and involvement into our school events and activities.