Career Education
Careers Award for Hillside!
We are very pleased to announce that we have been awarded the quality award for our Careers Related Learning programme. Over the last year we have been working with parents, children and businesses across the city to provide motivating and engaging experiences, such as visits from people in different professions the Ryman enterprise event and the science fair, to give children the opportunity to broaden their knowledge of the career pathways they could take and to support them in raising their aspirations. As always the children's enthusiasm to their learning has been a pleasure to work with. Well done Hillside!
Vision
Subject Leader: Miss Hewitt
Subject Support Coach: Mrs Schonau
At Hillside, we recognise that children in Primary school need to be given an insight into and awareness of career opportunities, but most importantly career pathways, in order for them to make informed decisions about subject choices at high school and their options for further education. Stoke –on-Trent is one of only 12 Opportunity Areas in the country where funding is being assigned to address the issue of social mobility. As a school within an Opportunity Area, we have a responsibility to raise aspirations and broaden the horizons of the children in our care. This means that we will be delivering a high quality education that will assist children with decision making, will raise aspirations and will give children the opportunity to gain experience within the world of work by meeting a range of employers, visiting various places of work, in addition to completing projects both at school and within the wider community. This programme will be delivered to all children, from as young as those in Early Years all the way through to Year Six through both the Skills Builder Partnership Programme and funding for employer engagement visits and activities through the Opportunity Area. We will be working on gaining a Quality Award that assesses our career work against the national best practice framework Gatsby Benchmark.
Curriculum
Careers related learning will be clearly structured throughout the school, with progression being shown in the key skills being taught and enhancement activities being offered from Nursery through to Year Six. Our aim is that children leave Hillside with an awareness of the world of work, experience in a range of employment sectors and an understanding of career pathways. We want to open as many doors as possible to our children- this programme is about teaching life lessons that the children will be able to use as they progress through their education and into the world of work. Our pupils will learn about different jobs and careers and gain an understanding of the different styles of jobs and careers that exist. Our pupils will then start to develop their own career plans and pathways, understanding what input this also may involve. Pupils at Hillside will develop an understanding of both paid and voluntary work, money matters, job security and understanding the business world. We are very passionate about our children challenging gender stereotypes for careers- this will be achieved through exposure to a range of careers, interviews with employees and different employer based opportunities.
SMSC
The careers programme encompasses all of the strands for SMSC. Our pupils will develop within the spiritual strand by developing a sense of identity, self-worth, personal insight, meaning and purpose. This will help to shape a ‘well rounded’ pupil by the end of KS2. Within the moral strand, particularly when challenging gender stereotypes within employment and through interviewing employees, our pupils will develop opinions about different views and begin to show an understanding towards the range of views within different establishment sand careers. Social development will play a key part within our pupil’s development. Finally, our pupils will develop within the cultural strand by understanding cultures represented in Europe and elsewhere in the world. Through this programme, our pupils will also begin to understand that cultures are always changing and coping with change.
Monitoring, review and evaluation
In order for us to continue providing quality Careers education monitoring takes place throughout the year; this includes distance travelled questionnaires completed by our Year 5 and 6 children and the gathering of evaluations of events that are held throughout the year completed by children staff and visitors that take part. These are used to inform future career events and tailor the opportunities to the needs and interests of our children at Hillside.
